Alina's Adventures

The neon no-tell's of Alberta City.

The tornados of last took much from our town. Yet, even as Big Daddy destroyed a large part of Alberta City, the tornado left a relic of years gone by- a little bit of neon signage from the classic Americana of road trips and motels. 

Patrick and Tino snuck out one night last week to catch a few photos. You can see how Patrick put his iPhone to good use.

You can also see a few of Tino's no-tell shots on his new photo website, where all proceeds go to help fund his walk across America. If you can't find a no-tell photo, just email him at the address listed and request one. He'll put it up for you because he's just that kind of guy.

The air-conditioning was new enough to flaunt when this sign first flickered.

Learning about wells and washing.

Two Micahs marvel over the well.

Our visit to Bear Creek Farm in Gordo, Alabama was a cornucopia of neat surprises. Jan and Neal, the "Bear Creek Farmers", decided to add a little zest to their retirement by creating a destination of local history and land lore for children to visit  and explore. Yesterday, we were among the happy beneficiaries of their decision.

Among other things, the kids learned how to draw water from a well and wash clothing in an old-time washing machine. 

Neal encourages Max and Micah Naomi as they struggle to heave up the water bucket.

The sweetness of success as they bucket filled with well water finally comes up.

After drawing water from the well a few times, the kids were lured by an old-time "washing machine" which has a pump to draw well-water for washing clothing and household fabrics. 

At first, they water they drew was muddy. 

Max was captivated by the pump mechanism which brought well water into the washtub.

Max mans the wringer, which squeezes water and soap from the linens.

Bear Creek Farm makes its own soap, which was perfect for washing clothes. Once upon a time, the same soap was used for everything- from washing clothing to scrubbing bodies.

Jan explained how this long, thin funnel is used to pull water from a well that has been dug in the ground. I learned so much, but it feels like we only scratched the surface of all the things we might learn at Bear Creek Farm.

The kids took turns washing Mary's fabric baby wipes in the washing machine- which we then used to soothe a few fire ant bites on Micah's ankles. Last summer, I filled the baby pool with water and brought out a load of laundry so Max and Micah could "hand wash" it with soap, which they did. They also hung it out to dry. Maybe we could set up a rain water barrel for regular outdoor washings. Something tells me the kids might find laundry to be a more exciting activity than yours truly.

Treasures at the Geological Survey of Alabama.

I made a quick stop that extended into an adventure yesterday when I dropped by the Geological Survey of Alabama seeking a few topographic maps. What I found was a tremendous community resource for the study of local geology and geologic history.

The geologists on hand were so helpful, and I could barely restrain myself from carving out a reading nook on the publications shelves. A little taste of all the wonders I discovered:

You can see the tail end of the Appalachians moving through Tuscaloosa. Some of the beauties observed at Hurricane Creek are a result of this Appalachian tail.

The Zeuglodon, or Basilosaurus cetoides, was designated Alabama's official state fossil in 1984. Zeuglodons were primitive whales that lived about 40 million years ago, during the Eocene period, when an ancient sea covered part of southwestern Alabama. Zeuglodon skeletons are currently on display at the Smithsonian and at the Alabama Museum of Natural History.

A mososaur, or Clidastes, in hot pursuit of a sea turtle, or Calcarichelys, through the shallow sea that covered south Alabama during the Late Cretaceous period over 80 million years ago. Clidastes was the most common of several kinds of mososaurs whose remains have been found in the Selma Group chalks of west and central Alabama. Clidastes reached a maximum length of about 20 feet, but some mososaurs were more than 50 feet long.

Alabama marble, a little flakier than most according to the grad student who described local rocks.

Bauxite and iron ore. The iron ore must have been taken from underwater because it looks almost like cillia.

Hematite looks beautiful when cut, polished, and used for jewelry.

Mica from the Piedmont region.

Coal is abundant in our neck of the woods.

If you'd like to learn more about local geology, plan a visit to the GSA. Or contact the Alabama Geological Society.

Love letter #46: Nine beautiful things, three of which are my children and one of which is a cloud.

The beautiful children.

The aforementioned cloud squats behind Max's dancing head.

The cumulative cumulonimbutimas effect is something akin to joy.

Blueberry Junkie's Che applique tutorial for toddler shirts.

Q is for Quilter's vintage ABC coloring book steals.

This video of the National Hollering Contest at Spivey's Corner.

Free music downloads of The Agrarians from the Internet Music Archive.

Oh, and free books, poetry, and other audio daydreams from the Internet Music Archive.

What I learned today at Hurricane Creek.

This is how we remember the Creek, how it appeared in our minds when we planned our picnic there today. And then there was this.

And now there is this.

A "this" with a disorienting and shocking effect.

When I first realized that we were at the campground gate, I just burrowed my head between my knees, speechless, trying not to cry so that the kids could enjoy our visit.

As I walked through the new terrain, trying to find words to process the destruction, I saw a familiar white ponytail- quite possibly the only person I felt like hearing from at that particular moment. Mr. John Wathen, Hurricane Creekkeeper. Of course he was at the creek, working, building, dreaming, keeping hope alive. 

He explained how he's been trying to restore the campground and creek area to Patrick and a fascinated Max. Using the sawmill purchased by Friends of Hurricane Creek, John has been cutting the fallen trees into usable "white oak" lumber. Max was amazed to find that John knew the age of the cut trees- "I've counted their rings".

The first time I met John, I remember being impressed by his contrasts- the fiery passion for preserving Hurricane Creek combined with a quiet reverence for its ecosystem and the mysteries of life. 

Talking to someone who nourishes such an intimate relationship with nature is the best way to inspire children to develop their own intimacy with the world around them. Max found John riveting.

When John explained how he was cutting falling trees into planks and that he used those planks to build the shade shelter (in progress above), Max jumped up and down:

"You mean you're recyling the wood to rebuild? You're not letting it go to waste! You're just doing it all perfect so Hurricane Creek can recover.... Oh, I just know it will, Mom. It's going to be beautiful!"

I want to see what John and Max see. Right now, my eyes tell me there is a long road ahead and the role of Friends of Hurricane Creek is more critical than ever before. 

Max jumped into my thoughts with a plea- "Can you ask John if there are any magic kinds of wood here? I want to make a magic wand for Ellie and I need the wood."

Of course John was happy to oblige- and happy to show us an ironwood tree that survived the storm. Before Max could jump ten times, John had cut a long branch from the ironwood and given it to Max, remarking on the strength and resilience of the tree's nature.

Micah surveyed the new scene, and pointed out that the creek was green- a good sign. Or, at least, a sign that not everything has changed. 

But the change which startles also presents an opportunity- a chance to study and observe an ecosystem as it recovers from natural disaster. A chance to tally every new growth, to measure short-term effects of natural cycles, to learn so much about a topic that will come to matter more as our climate continues to change. Please join us. Please be a part of this change. Please don't hesitate to email me and let me know if you have suggestions, observations, or a little time to spare.

No suggestion is too small. Max quickly informed me that he wants to come back "as soon as possible" to gather more materials for magic wands- "This place is FULL of magic, Mom!"- which he plans to sell to raise money for the Creek and for John's work. So Max has a plan. And I'm working on a little plan which involves extra lumber and paint. It's your turn.

Biking near the old train trestle.

Tuscaloosa's old M & O train trestle allows you to view the wooden arteries of trestle engineering. We biked around it yesterday, bumped into some earnest geocachers who couldn't find the cache (which means we need our grab-and-go bag), and marveled at the weather.

I think it's so funny to notice how Pat and I use our iPhones differently. I used mine mostly for phone calls, taking photos, and uploading photos. Patrick spends the majority of his iPhone time on the phone, playing various online games, or web-surfing. His iPhone is like a mini-arcade.

In the photo above, Pat is (probably) trying to find out which cache the family we met was hunting down. If I get a nice camera one day, I'm pretty sure the iPhone will be relegated to a very small piece of the daily pie.

Bryce Hospital Cemetery #2: A scattering of graves.

On our way to the park, I convinced Patrick to pull off the main road near a dirt road with a locked iron gate- the home to long-deceased patients of Bryce Hospital for the Insane (as it was called at the time of its creation). Since we were barred from entry by the gate, we hiked up through a little bit of forest until we arrived at a clearing with tombstones sprinkled around in no particular order or pattern. Bryce Cemetery #2 proved no less heartbreaking than the institution which housed its inhabitants in the interim.

A few fake plastic flowers strewn across the grass offered the only sign of human life, the sole tokens of affection. A Radiohead song came to mind and wouldn't leave.

Micah stood at the edge of the clearing, where nothing was clear. She began sorting for words and reasons to understand our little stop on the way to the park.

Mommy, what are we doing here?

I don't know, Micah. Trying to find out what happened to the people that lived in a hospital long, long ago.

Oh.

She paused and looked around.

I don't think there's people here, Mommy. No people.

No people, but brand new tombstones and headstones, freshly cut granite still gleaming gray. The effect was disorienting because the tombstones are so oddly arranged, tossed about like paper bags in a parking lot, that the memorial itself feels surreal. 

Most of the tombstones or gravestones could be found only by accident. Is this an accident? Or is it just part and parcel of our cultural conceptions of the mentally-ill or mentally-disabled? No terminology, no euphemistic resort to humane language, makes this scene more humane.

The tombstone of Reverend Handy, who passed away in 1893, sits alone atop a small hill. Was he a chaplain for the old asylum or a patient? If a chaplain, then why wasn't he buried with his family? Why the lonely grave in a meadow with no roads or visitors? Rev. Handy had a wife and 3 children. He was loved. 

As I walked around the meadow, I felt something hard under my foot. When I looked down, the gloss of gray stone poked out from beneath some leaves. After clearing away leaves and twigs, the story of a man or woman named F. Locke Taylor peaked up at me. Somehow, it stung not to know whether I should apologize to Mr. Taylor or Mrs. Taylor for bouncing across their grave. 

Vicie Barnett only tasted 21 years of life on this earth. Now, Vicie's grave marker lies in the middle of meadow marking no particular place at all- an aura, the grass, a blue sky. Under what patch of soil does Vicie lie? Where is Vicie? Why bother to create a new tombstone designating no one space or corpse? 

The wild plants pay their respects to the stories human beings try to erase. I have a feeling the munchkins and I will return with a few flowers and chocolates for the 1,550 human beings allegedly interred in this meadow.

"The Watchers", a poem by Helen Blackshear.

Helen Blackshear served as Alabama poet laureate for almost a decade, her nimble voice lacing scraps of history together with the threads of lost sunsets. In "Heritage", she encourages us to embrace the living history in our midst- "To listening ears old things have tales to tell."

In "The Watchers", she mourns the exodus of little eyes from the world as she knew it. A darker poem, to be sure, but well-lit.

THE WATCHERS

Are we becoming like the dinosaurs,

Those of us who fell in love with words,

Subject to uncomprehending stares

From vacant eyes of video-conscious herds?

 

What magic will these modern children know

Who never rode the wind with Dorothy

Or sailed the pirate seas in Westward Ho,

Who greet the Brothers Grimm with apathy?

 

They sit within their darkened rooms and glue

Their eyes upon a flickering TV screen.

Heedless of sun and sky they laugh on cue,

Guided by prompting from the laugh machine.

 

For them there is no "Open Sesame!"

The world of wonders has no golden key.

All Foxfired-up: Exploring the Foxfire method to learning.

One of my greatest inspirations in home "schooling" has been the Foxfire series and its engaging form of exploration. Started in 1966 by an incredible teacher named Eliot Wigginton (a.k.a. Wig), Foxfire is the name that an English class picked, in 1966, for a student-produced magazine they chose to create, containing stories and interviews gathered from elders in their rural Southern Appalachian community. The name comes from the bioluminescent fungi that grow on rotting wood in damp forests creating a blue-green glow that can be seen only in dark, starlit areas, away from artificial light. 

In addition to a fostering a new learning relationship between teacher and student, Foxfire also generated a new type investigation known as "cultural journalism". For Wig, cultural journalism allows students to become deeply involved in exploring, recording, transmitting, and teaching their own local histories in a manner that both respects and honors the varying underlying assumptions of the storytellers and interviewees. Wig believed cultural journalism would encourage a broader appreciation for cultural diversity and global differences because students would begin the practice of immersing themselves in other worldviews and learning from them. 

Educational theorists from Reggio Emmilias to John Dewey have long touted the value of peer-to-peer teaching. The Foxfire school actually put this to practice by allowing "senior" Foxfire students to teach "junior" Foxfire students the various skills and emergent procedures in the production of the magazine. By encouraging the students to take ownership of the project pieces individually and the entire project as a group, Foxfire "taught" without "teaching down".

Brooks Adams explains how he discovered he was "learning":

"The basic idea behind the radio project is to have students do research and use the radio as the medium to reach the local audience with the final product. I didn't realize it when Suzie and I were doing radio for Foxfire that first summer, but in doing that, everything had an educational goal: everything that I was learning, gaining, and practicing that summer, everything from having to do the research about the topics, and writing down and taking notes, and turning information into a script, and having to condense it into a spot that was short enough, using the right words in the right places." 

And Wig explains why we need to re-learn how to teach (though I must admit that Grandma Vicki already told me all of this in some form or another over the years):

"All the evidence is there now that the kind of democratic, collaborative problem-solving approach to the curriculum that led to the creation of Foxfire works- and works in just about any situation, rural to urban, and just about any course. And it works far better than the method so many of us are fond of which simply has the kids reading textbook chapters and answering the review questions at the end of each. But the eternal dilemma I am my staffers confront in every course is that teachers just don't know how to do it. In many cases, that's because they've never experienced this type of process themselves as students. They can't imagine what it looks like, or what it feels like from the student's point of view to be immersed in it.

They're in just the same situation as the kids. The kids are intelligent, as are the teachers, but they don't have much experience in creating a manuscript for a publisher. So you provide the structure by which that experience can happen. Then the kids build on that structure. Teachers often need the same kind of training situation. Once they've been through it themselves, they can transfer the skills acquired to a host of new situations, as can the kids.

But teachers often aren't trained that way. They study philosophy in text/lecture courses- the worst form of instruction- and they study it before they have actually taught, so they have no experience base to which to relate the information. It's just like the kids, again, who are made to study enormous amounts of material without having any personal experience to relate it to, so it all goes through their heads because they believe the information is useless stuff they'll never want or need."

Teachers like Carol Coe (see article) have applied the Foxfire model in areas as diverse as Seattle, in which her students envisioned and created their own magazine, Encore, to explore sociological issues in their community. Among the various projects which students around the country have imagined and conducted:

• An environmental fair in which students wrote scripts and designed sets for puppet shows they videotaped themselves. They also created and displayed an ecology quilt, shoe-box dioramas and globes, and have each written books on endangered species.
• A United Nations model for several high schools in which each participant represented a different country and had to research that country's political position as it relates to the rest of the world.
• A pen-pal video written, directed, and taped by students about their urban, racially diverse school for a class in a rural school in Massachusetts.
• A detailed record of local weather patterns assisted by student-constructed rain gauges and weathervanes.
• The Thinking Mother's thoughtful post on how Foxfire can be applied.

You can visit the Foxfire Museum in Mountain City, Georgia and learn more about the rural Appalachian folkways and the Foxfire way of exploring, which emphasizes the importance of individual decision-making and reflection. Or you can begin brainstorming with your student/s or children right now.

Chasing butterflies in a Foxfire-inspired way:

• A 16-page PDF booklet which explains Foxfire, its history, and its books.
• How Foxfire's core principles were influenced by John Dewey's experiential education.
• "Student-Centered Learning Communities: Teachers' Perspectives", an academic article by Ardeth Deay and Joy Faini Saab.
• Rural Voices Radio celebrates rural focus areas with a combination of stories, poems, music, and local sounds and illustrates how place can provide powerful material for writing and learning.
• Swan's Island Memory Project was spurred by a tragic fire in which much of the Island’s recorded history burned to the ground. The Project aims to revive recollections of the small Maine Island through recorded histories and historical photographs.
• The Museum of the Person is an institution designed by Karen Worcman to capture the oral histories of oft-unrecognized individuals – from the homeless to nursing home residents – and provide them a “place” to tell and store their life stories.
• Faces of Fox Point uses storytelling, photo exhibits, and mapping exercises to understand and celebrate the community character of this historically rich Rhode Island neighborhood.
• Mapping Main Street is a collaborative documentary project that compiles multimedia contributions recorded by volunteers on actual Main Streets throughout the United States in an effort to capture the unique and varied nature of each street.
• Story Circles are modeled after traditional storytelling gatherings which allowed people in a town to come together to share experiences and stories. This process can help communities explore and identify unifying values, which can inform community planning processes.
• The Center for the Study of History and Memory is an academic research center dedicated to using first-person narratives as methods of documenting 20th century history.
• The Center for Digital Storytelling is an NGO dedicated to helping individuals (young and old, across the country) tell stories and listen to others.

The Annual Friends of Hurricane Creek Banquet.

You don't have to be a member of anything except the human species in order to register and attend this dinner, which promises to be one of the most exciting events for local nature-lovers this year. Help us to honor a local business which respects and nurtures an ecosystem in an industry where respect for ecology is often equated with a decreased profit margin. Purchase some Christmas gifts for family and friends at the art auction. Find out what we are doing next- and how you can be a part of it.

Register online at the Friends of Hurricane Creek website.

Letterboxing with Ellie.

Ellie and Tiffany (or Chickadee, as Micah likes to say) came with us to Tannehill for a little letterbox hunting, roaming, gear-exploring, and lunch at a place we've never seen advertised. Tiffany took the most beautiful pictures, which I pilfered from her Facebook page. If I weren't on my best behavior, I'd pilfer her commentary as well- funny, direct, Tiffany-esque. I couldn't help but smile when I read it.

After traipsing through the woods and finding a strange pear-potato plant, Ellie found the first letterbox hidden deep within the womb of a large oak tree. 

"Yaaayyy.... we found it!"

Tiffany took a photo of us exploring the letterbox we found with its hand-carved stamp. 

Tiff, Ellie, Max, and Micah explored the old cemetery while I nursed Milla and watched the first leaves of the season tumble from the trees.

The next letterbox clues led us to the ironworks museum, and the nice lady- the kind of nice lady who knows how to skin apples in one long piece of rind- allowed Milla and myself to enter free of charge. So I spent the money in the museum store buying a little fool's gold for the treasure hunters.

I'm not sure what subliminal messaging took place in the museum video, but the boys were definitely awed and enthused by iron, gears, ironworks, and the various tubes in the museum.

Letterbox #2 was not to be found today. It looks like we might have to return with more clues. Max and Ellie and Micah took the not-finding in stride.

Milla savored clambering through the tunnels and listening to the echo of her own little yell-- a yell which continued all the way to the car when he had to leave the tunnels in search of lunch.

Micah kept saying, "Higher, Chickadee, higher!". It was hard not to giggle.

The old cotton gin behind the ironworks museum. 

Our excursion ended with a yummy feast at Ray's. Tiffany and I enjoyed being called "baby" by our waitress while the kids traded and tasted each other's food in what almost became a science experiment.

Playing some strange neo-Darwinian game with sugar packets while waiting for chow. 

A dance party with kids on a rainy day.

The weather limits our choices again today. Or maybe it just brings dancing and music into sharp relief. Why not dance? If you'd like to join us, just right-click on the image with song titles to download the song and host your own dance party.

skip to my lou is a traditional American folk dance in which partners usually swing around and trade off for other partners. First we practiced skipping across the room using the cues "step-hop, step-hop." Then, without the music, we skipped in a straight line towards our partner, reciting “step-hop, step-hop" until we reached our partner. When we faced each other, we froze in place. Then we linked arms and skipped, turing clockwise in a circle. 

Then we added music to the mix. On the words “Skip to My Lou”, we skipped across the room towards our partners. When we reached our partners, the verses began and we linked arms and skipped in circles.

Afterwards, we engaged in the customary folk dancing practice of acknowledging our partner by bowing (for boys) or performing a curtsey (for girls). 

imagining we are lining tracks For this song, we talked about how men used to sing as they lined railroad tracks, which involved lifting heavy pieces of wood and coordinating when you would drop them together. Track lining songs are an important part of our shared history here in the South. 

As we listened to the song, everybody "lined tracks". For further exploration, you can learn more about railroad ties and track-lining here.

hobbit dancing is a pretty wide-open dancing activity. We talked about hobbits and their small size and how this might inform their dancing style. We also got a little inspiration from this wild hobbit dance video. Then we just listened to the music and let our inner hobbits call the shots.

Snowden's Jig is described in the music liner as a "Genuine Negro Jig". For this dance, we tried to learn how to dance an Irish jig with some help from our friend the internet. A traditional Irish jig is a series of hops and steps that repeat themselves over and over again. The steps are simple, either stepping forward or taking steps backwards, but the hops can require some practice in getting the timing and coordination right. The best way to practice getting it right is to make sure that you are listening well to the music.

The beat is fast, so you'll want to make small steps and hops at first in order to maximize your chances of getting in all the steps on the beat of the music. Here is a step-by-step:

1. Point your left foot in front of you. Step onto your left foot and bring your right foot into a closed position behind it, transferring your weight onto your right foot.

2. Bring your left toe up to your right knee as you hopSwing your left leg so that your left knee is pointing in front of you and your foot is by your right knee---this is also done while hopping.

3. Place your left foot on the ground behind you: the first of four steps backwards, left, right, left, right. Your weight should now be on your right foot, so that you can point your left foot in front of you---you're back to the beginning!

Unfortunately, I was too busy dancing to take any photos, but I'm walking on sunshine.

P is for Pooka letterbox.

Our Nisse Gnome created his first letterbox and invited his friend Micah to find it, since she was a large part of the inspiration. The letterbox includes a stamp, but you need to bring your own ink and pen. There is also a small collector's item- there will be a collector's item for each box in Nisse Gnome's "Alphabet of Hidden Folks" series. 

How to find the P is for Pooka letterbox:

1. Hudson Strode was a Renaissance scholar who taught at the University of Alabama and made a name for himself teaching creative writing courses that led many southern writers to publication of their first novels. When Prof. Strode passed away, he left his home and his papers to the University. Please be respectful when you hunt because visiting scholars sometimes reside on the grounds.
2. You will begin at the front gate of the Strode home driveway in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Park on the street. Then stand in front of the historical sign marker and face the sign as if you were reading it.
3. Turn a complete half circle to the right so that you are facing a large meadow. Begin walking in the direction of this meadow in a straight line from the half-circle turn.
4. Keep walking straight and you will pass two small trees on the right. Keep going and you will pass another tree on the right which was struck by lightning. You should be a little more than halfway across the meadow now.
5. Continue in the same direction and you will see another tree to your right as you near the edge of the field. Walk up to this tree but keep it on your right side. 
6. With this tree on your right, turn a full half-circle to the left and take 19-25 steps towards a large overhanging bush.
7. Look underneath the bush close to the trunk. Please cover with leaves and a bit of straw after you have stamped the logbook.

 

One of the reasons I love living in Alabama.

It has nothing to do with football and everything to do with storytelling, kinship networks, folk art, and happenstance. Mr. Kenneth "Skip" Henry, the oldest son in a family of 12 children, dropped by to see if our home could use some exterior paint. What began as a brief chat stretched into an hour-long discussion about life, family, faith, entrepreneurship, and Skip's brief foray into folk art. 

You see, Skip had a friend named Jimmy Lee Sudduth. Jimmy just so happened to become a well-known folk-artist who made more money than he ever wanted or imagined. (Skip said Jimmy didn't care about the money for money's sake- he liked the money for all the people it kept around him.) All the striving hipsters in Tuscaloosa crave a Sudduth for their dining rooms, but it is in a hipster's nature to crave and all this craving is neither here nor there. Speaking of there, let's get back to it.

Sometimes Skip would go and get mud for Jimmy. Legend has it that Jimmy could squeeze 36 colors from the dirt, mud, and rocks he gathered from his yard and fields in the surrounding area. To create additional colors, he mixed these pigments with house paint and occasionally with juices from leaves, grass, and berries, as well as soot from his chimney and leftover pieces of chalk. By applying these mixes with his forefinger and thumb, Sudduth made his "mud pictures." Sometimes he did other things, like burning parts of the wooden backgrounds for his paintings or carving into the wood with a knife or even scratching details into the surface of the mud.

A painting by Jimmy Lee Sudduth.

Jimmy always encouraged Skip to try his hand at painting, and Skip always found a good reason to put it off. One day, when he stopped by Jimmy's house, Skip found a piece of wood with what looked like the beginnings of a female form on it. So Skip decided to take it inside and give the painting a try. As he painted a woman, none other than Oprah Winfrey began to peer out at him from his painting. So he added a microphone to keep the Oprah spirit in the painting happy. And then he left it in the studio.

The next time he dropped by, Jimmy was smiling big. He told Skip that someone had come in and taken a painting (stolen, taken, nabbed, something...) and it just so happened to be Skip's painting. They chuckled and expressed surprise over this event, and Skip didn't think much of it for the next fifteen years.

Then, one day many years later, after Jimmy had passed away and Skip had spoken at his funeral (or maybe it was a home-going), Skip was in downtown Tuscaloosa. He stopped by Chuck's Fish and he couldn't believe his eyes when he saw the spirit of Oprah staring back at him from the restaurant wall. It was his painting! How on earth do you start that conversation with the restaurant managers? How do you tell them that you painted that "Sudduth" on their wall and then the rest of the amazing story that has everything except a technicolor dreamcoat?

I loved talking to Skip- loved the way in which he acknowledges children as little people (rather than the common expression of polite annoyance). Skip Henry is more than just an accidental folk artist. He is also the owner of Sticky City Painting on Greensboro Avenue and the inventor of the Sticky Grip golf glove. Because Skip is the kind of man that doesn't do just one thing- and he's the kind of neat person you just happen to meet on a mosquito-frenzied afternoon in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. And he's the kind of person you should hire to paint your house if you like painters with a little folk-artist-inventor inside. I sure do.

Letterboxing with kids.

Letterboxing is a great way to teach children about maps, geography, history, and long-term gratification while hiking around this beautiful world. One might even go so far as to think that it was invented by wood nymphs as a way to play and interact with munchkins. What is it and why is Alina madly in love?

It is a national treasure hunt with pretend identities and aesthetic rewards plus the thrill and skill of orienteering. Some have called it "a thinking man's treasure hunt". According to Letterboxing North America: 

Letterboxers hide small, weatherproof boxes in publicly-accessible places (like parks) and post clues to finding the box online on one of several Web sites. However, clues to finding some of the most highly-sought boxes are passed around by word of mouth. There are about 20,000 letterboxes hidden in North America alone. Individual letterboxes usually contain a log book, an often hand-carved rubber stamp and may contain an ink pad. Finders make an imprint of the letterbox's stamp on their personal log book, and leave an imprint of their personal stamp on the letterbox's logbook .

The history behind letterboxing:

Letterboxing is said to have started in England in 1854 when a Dartmoor National Park guide, James Perrott of Chagford, left a bottle by Cranmere Pool with his calling card in it an an invitation to those who found the bottle to add theirs. Eventually, visitors began leaving a self-addressed post card or note in the jar, hoping for them to be returned by mail by the next visitor (thus the origin of the term “letterboxing;” “letterbox” is a British term for a mailbox). This practice ended in time, however, and the current custom of using rubber stamps and visitor’s log books came into use. It caught on in the US in 1998 after an article in Smithsonian magazine.

Thanks to this wonderful accessible website, I created a printable document to help you get started on letterboxing. Print, share, and make a day of it.

Some letterboxing trail names we found in Ohio.

And while you're at it... 

• Alabama letterboxes, locations and info on letterboxes all over the state
• Alabama mystery letterboxes
• AtlasQuest, one of the premier letterboxing sites online and very child-friendly. Create an account and add us as friends- CoryellCastle, of course.
• Letterboxing glossary includes terms and vocabulary used by letterboxers
• Code of Conduct, the implicit rules and conduct behind the game
• Silent Doug's website on letterboxing
• "Tina's Big Adventure", a story to introduce kids to letterboxing
• Online letterboxing game, allows kids to try their hand at compasses and orienteering
• Compassing 101, a how-to on using compasses in orienteering
• Letterbox with kids, a great little piece from trekaroo
• Letterboxing photo albums with kids, shows kids in action
• Letterboxing at National Geographic Kids
• How to plant your own letterbox, instructions and details
• Creating great letterboxes, tips and tricks of the trade

Craft but not least- letterbox crafts and activities to enthuse your munchkins:

• How to make your own letterboxing stamp from a rubber eraser, a great craft for kids
• How to make your own letterboxing stamp from foam stickies, an easy way to create stamps for little ones
• Stamp carving 101, a highly detailed tutorial
• Watercolor stamping tutorial
• Adding color before stamping tutorial
• Adding color after stamping tutorial
• Multiple stampings tutorial
• Stamp backgrounding tutorial
• Overlapping stamps tutorial
• Codex book-making tutorial so you can craft your own stamp collecting book
• How to care for ink pads

A hunt for fairy abodes.

Today we went on a hunt for fairy abodes. To find fairies, we first needed to know more about how they live. We know that fairies, like all hidden folk, are usually all around us but remain invisible. This is partly because they are often active when we are sleeping or celebrating or doing other things.

Their time is the in-between time-- the space between seasons, like Halloween or early spring; the daily transition periods of dusk and dawn; and especially Midsummer Night’s Eve and Winter Solstice. On these days, time seems to stand still and shudder as the length of the day starts to reverse itself. That crack in time, that small disturbance in the order of the earth, allows hidden folk to make themselves known to us.

For there is nothing ordinary about the appearance of hidden folk or fairies. They show up when things are not as usual, when we encounter periods of being “in between”, when we stand on the threshold between experiences. These events can range from deathbeds to pregnancy, moments before entering the world after death and moments when you are carrying the child that has not yet made a mother of you.  All of adolescence is such a period because it is neither childhood nor adulthood-- it is the space in between both. 

Of course, there are some special humans who are gifted with what is called “second sight”. The second-sighted can see fairies all the time. Some say that the second-sighted are more likely to be born on a Sunday. Others suggest that you might gain second sight by rubbing an ointment of four-leaf clovers on your eyelids.

The hidden folk are truly everywhere. If you learn how and when to look, you’ll be able to see them on your travels, adventures, and even in your own neighborhood. And then, if you name them, legend has it that they will always belong to you or be at “your behest” in some way.

Before setting off in search of fairies, print the flower fairies handout below so you can learn more specifics about fairy houses, homes, and habitats.

Flower Fairies Handout

Since fairies reside in the in-between spaces, we decided to conduct our hunt for fairy homes in Dublin's Historic Cemetery. Graves are special liminal places where all sorts of supernatural and possibly hidden folk reside. These are a few of the possible fairy abodes which Max and Micah pointed out on our stroll.

Behind the little gravestones and rocks.

Hidden in the shady spots of the glen.

 

Swimming in the little log pool.

Visiting with the gnome who lives in this tree trunk.

Conversing between the cracks in this old grave stone.

Micah said "her fairy" lived "right here".

Playing between the clover and cracks.

Roam-schooling Ohio.

While we are here, we're roamschooling the scene and sopping up Ohio history like syrup on a porous waffle. The free Ohio Coloring Book contains information and illustrations for trips in cars from here to there (as the rainy weather demands). It is also a great background for our local history as it includes geography.

We plan to visit the Ohio Statehouse and the Columbus Historical Society as a starting point for our wandering. Of course, backgrounding enriches the visits.

• Yellow Buckeye Tree printable, plantings, and craft.
• Lincoln crossword puzzle printable because Abe is big around these parts.

The Columbus Library has a website, Columbus Memory, devoted to local history which includes biographies, buildings, photos old and new, plus free lesson plans put together by members of the Columbus Historical Society. 

• The Ohio Statehouse Lesson Plan
• Family Life on the Frontier Lesson Plan
• Immigrants and Columbus: Then and Now Lesson Plan

Exploring Indian Run Falls.

A splendid fall day. We printed up the Indian Run Falls Scavenger Hunt and Activity Guide and set off with my dad to explore the forests of Dublin with some grape juice, oranges, carrot bran muffins, and various items that might prove useful when hiking with munchkins.

Max searches for the mysterious "ghost tree" on his scavenger hunt.

A view of a perfect swimming hole surrounded by riffles.

The ravine walls are made from limestone.

Max and Micah hold hands along the trail.

The kids and I sneak off the trail to explore the river.

The last piece of the scavenger hunt led us to the old Wyandot Indian encampment near the waterfall. Max and I learned from our handout that the Wyandot believe they will return to their campgrounds in the afterlife. We didn't see any ghosts. Nor did we find the notorious "living rock" through which the Wyandot pygmies enter our world.

Max marveled at the Wyandot traditions and matriarchal cultural institutions- "Mom, the Wyandot women were in charge of EVERYTHING!", he exclaimed. 

Micah chimed in, "But Mommy is the boss, Max." Pace Patrick, little pitchers have big ears, big mouths, and pumpkin kisses.

Sittin' up with the dead: A tradition that has gone out of fashion.

A print from an old Romanian preschool textbook dated from the time of communism.

The old man was laid out on the dining room table in a nice wool coat and his wooden leg had the gleam of fresh polish. Carla and I, like good little American kids, prepared to "offer our condolences", a bunch of fancy, tender words plucked and arranged in a bouquet, to the elderly gentleman's wife but whenever she ran out of the breath required to sustain her long wails, two other ladies with scarves tied neatly round their chins would pick up the chorus. There was no proper time or place for the offering of verbal bouquets in the death vigil of the Romanian peasant who lived across the street in the village of Bran.

I've never been able to erase the images of this vigil from my mind.

"She must have loved him SO much to cry like this," I whispered to my cousin.

"Right," he muttered, "He beat her with his wooden leg almost every night. I don't think she will miss those beatings." Standing on hallowed ground scoops the breath from your chest like ice cream. Carla's little face crumpled into that look of concern that covered for fear and worry. For two or three days, villagers streamed in and out of the house to pay their respects. The wailing continued. When the widow's voice grew hoarse and raspy from mourning, other village ladies picked up the slack. The old man's spirit may have left his body, but no one else in town would leave the body alone until he was safely covered with the dirt he had worked his entire life. 

My travels and experiences have taught me that village life and folkways tend to be similar across cultures. Enjoying every sinewy morsel of Mitchell B. Garrett's Horse and Buggy Days on Hatchet Creek, I wasn't surprised to find a similar dead-ication in Reconstruction Alabama. Garrett reports:

When a person died, the relatives of the deceased were expected to weep and wail a right smart to indicate their grief, lapsing at intervals into a sort of comatose condition. Good neighbors "laid out" the body, that is, washed and dressed it for burial, and laid it out on the best bed in the parlor with the eyes closed and the hands folded across the chest. Since one night at least always intervened between death and burial, it was the custom to sit up with the corpse from twilight till dawn. This last service was often performed by a group of young people of courting age who dropped in at nightfall, packed the aggrieved family off to bed, and took over the premises for a quiet social gathering. If the season was summer, they could sit on the front porch, talk, and play games; if winter, they could sit in the living room or kitchen by the open fire. There was nothing especially solemn about "sitting up with the body".

I wonder how many love stories began with a wake, how many kisses were stolen from the excuse to go and check on the body. The Pine Hill Haints need a song about this....

Garrett goes on to explain that tombstone were "two long flat rocks picked up in the neighborhood" and specific practices governed the digging of graves.

Graves were always dug with careful reference to the points of the compass-- the head towards the west, so that on the Resurrection Morning the body would rise with the face toward the break of day and the rising sun.

I'm still stuck somewhere back on that porch with the crickets, fireflies, and kisses of endless summer nights. 

More butterflies to chase in this meadow:

• "Sitting Up With the Dead", a lovely historical look at this Southern practice (Jospehine's Journal)
• A gaze through the history of staying up with the dead (Every City Is A Small Town)
• A brief history of Hatchet Creek (John B. Scott Jr.)
• Other books written about Clay County, Alabama (Clay County Chamber of Commerce)

Alabama ghost stories to share with a swollen summer twilight.

Since I've been on this southern history and literature reading frenzy lately, ghosts pop out everywhere. I would venture to say it is almost impossible to read a Southern writer without stumbling over the ghosts and grannies fogging his gaze.

Down here, between the thick aroma of honeysuckle and the slivered shade of the magnolias, we live in the comfortable clutter of dusk; what is hidden can be overlooked in an ongoing battle with mosquitoes. When we look back, we lose our sense of direction and linger. So it is with the South and its grumpy ghosts, spirits left on the margins of history, memories who have turned the margins into mansions.

You can't see the South without catching a glimmer of its ghosts. Call it fiction, fantasy, crazy, or folksay. Call it whatever enables you to read it. What folllows is a list of favorites to bring along during your summer travels.

The infamous Jeffrey, illuminated by the stories of Ms. Windham.

alina's favorite alabama ghosts & their stories

Albertville has a cemetery in which you can hear a girl ghost humming Amazing Grace at night.

Mobile is home to a number of forlorn spirits. Confederate soliders haunt the Spanish Fort area. A home in Midtown is haunted. And the ghost in a historic Mobile home unnerves its "rightful" inhabitants. According to staff, the Mobile Carnival Museum is haunted.

Jacksonville has a tunnel in which a worker was buried. His ghost is said to haunt his unburied body.

Huntsville's Cedarhurst Mansion remains haunted by history.

Suggsville is home to the eternal story of a father's love for his son and its spiritual remains, which lurk in the Cleveland House.

In Oxford, a bridge is called Hell's Gate because it is said if you stop on the bridge and turn around, the road behind you will look like the fiery gates of Hell. Many years ago a young couple lost their lives on this bridge. On a dark night, if you stop on the bridge and turn off all the lights, a member of the dead couple will get into the vehicle, leaving a wet spot on the seat.

In Union Springs, I've uncovered a few mysteries and secrets that verge on the ghostly.

Gulf Shores has its ghosts as well. Fort Morgan is said to be haunted by the ghosts of long-ago wars.

In Florence, the UNA Bookstore is said to be haunted.

In Tuscaloosa, Smith Hall is rumored to be haunted. As is the old Bryce Hospital. And various fire towers. And lake landings. And trails near campus. And gazebos. And anyplace under a harvest moon.

Selma offers respite to the ghosts of the Sturtivant Home.

Demopolis boasts the legendary ghosts of Gaineswood.

In Birmingham, the ghost of John Jowers still lingers around Sloss Furnaces.

Montevallo is frequented by the ghost of Colonel Reynolds, who insists on his rightful due at Reynolds Hall. And Col. Reynolds is not the only spook in town. Trummy also haunts Palmer Hall.

The ghost in the courthouse window of the Pickens County Courthouse has become a legend in our state.

In Anniston, the girl's locker room of the Anniston High School is haunted by a former, heartsick student. Also, the Stringfellow Memorial Hospital has two ghostly residents, while a suicidal nun haunts the Parker Memorial Church. If you fancy dining with a ghost, have a meal at the Victoria. And if you want to be seriously scared, set up shop in the old Blockbuster building.

In Coatopa, there is all kinds of spiritual excitement at Leehaven.

Athens has its share of spiritual events. The ghost of winsome Abigail appears arounf Macandless Hall.

Munford harbors the ruins of a foundry said to be haunted by the ghosts of children killed on its soil. The Hill Elementary School is said to be guarded by the ghost of the former principal and founder of the school, Ophelia S. Hill, who died outside the school by being struck by lightning. Also, there are many odd things which happen at Cemetery Hill and Gravity Hill which no one can quite explain.

In Gallant, the ghosts of children come out to play in the Conn Cemetery.

Never Mind Them Watermelons is an Alabama ghost story about a man who didn't believe in ghosts.

Little Cottage in the Woods is a ghost story (that includes an audio version) which takes place somewhere in the echoes of Montgomery.

The Last Confession is a ghost tale which includes a Catholic priest, a Bronco, and the town of Phoenix, Alabama.

You Can't Keep Up is a ghost story that takes place in an unamed small town on hiking trails and lakes. Classic style.

Stranger in the Church is a ghost story (with audio version) adapted from folklore in Red Springs, Alabama.

The Clik-Bok Tree is an awesome spirit story which travels from the sands of Africa to the red dirt of Alabama. A great read for kids.

Sleepyhead is a tale (with audio version) that hails from South Alabama and includes a witch. 

Skull Lake is a goose-bumping tale (with audio version) about a death, a mineral company, a swimming hole, and a memory that can't sleep.

There is an old haunted house in Clay County along the Ashland-Watts Mill Road.

The ghost of Mr. George Dunning will not fade away.

And then there's the lovely, recently-deceased Kathryn Tucker Windham, a legendary local storyteller and a very special lady.

Searching for Brownville: A field trip.

Inspired by local labor rights history and a sunny day, we went on a hunt for the abandoned town of Brownville, Alabama. We found...

beautiful purple flowers that would have made ripe, juicy fruits given some alterations in DNA...

enchanting dirt roads lined with wilderness and river rocks....

 

a long driveway with black wrought-iron gates that have the letter "S" carved into them (for "Stanley", speculates Max, since Mr. Stanley owned the creosote company)...

a sun-drenched field where the Community Center once stood....

an empty box of Pyramid cigarettes and a road named Thornhill Drive dropped like a hint just a few miles away. The history remains a mystery.

Tell me a story quilts.

Deborah's story quilt inspiration won't let me be. The South is so rich with quilting traditions, an art which has its own regional and local vernacular, a language I've been dying to learn.

Deborah posts about the story quilts of Harriet Powers, an emancipated slave who joined tableaus of Bible scenes and local events to create unique and magnificent quilts.

There are so many ways to tell a story and so many stories to tell.

• Tuscaloosa native Yvvonne Wells narrates the local history of the Civil Rights movement in her quilts. 
• The Auburn Unitarian Universalist Fellowship's story quilt tells a heart-warming story of faith and community. 
• Nora Ezell's story quilt of the Freedom Rides brings Alabama history to life. You can learn more about Nora here. 
• Tracey tells the story of her father's life in a memorial story quilt.
• Quilts were created as homespun war memorials, reminders of war as understood by the citizens.
• This quilt tells the story of Chief Anderson and the Tuskegee Airmen.
• This quilt tells the story of Sandy Ground and Staten Island.
• The story of the film noir quilt and the Tuscaloosa tornado is enough to turn an abstract quilt into a story quilt where the tale is in the seams.

"Yesterday: Civil Rights in the South", a quilt by Yvvonne Wells.

Ellen Edith offers the keys to the how-to kingdom with her free PDF how-to, "Creating a Story Quilt". 

Story quilts can even be used as homeschooling projects to accompany literary or historical studies. I've never been part of a homeschooling Literature Circle, and this might be an excuse to start one. According to the Literature Circles Resource Center, quilt squares can feature chapters, characters, or significant scenes from the literature circle book. They can include a border with a repeated design or symbol that represents a key idea. Quilt squares can incorporate visual as well as written components (e.g., an important quote or brief summary). 

If I were to create a Stefanescu family story quilt, what stories would I include? How to bridge the Romanian part of our family history with the Southern part? I think I've stumbled into a new favorite daydream.

More threads to chase if you just can't wait enough:

• Beautiful lesson plan that deserves a few days- Story Quilt Project Lesson Plan. Love it.
• "Quilt Me A Story", an excellent article about storytelling through quilts, which includes quite a bit about individuals like Harriet Powers.
• Stories in Quilts, another lovely story quilts lesson plan with loads of links to images and quilts.
• An educational powerpoint plus links and history of story quilts.
• The Josefina Story Quilt, a book for munchkins.
• Faith Ringgold's story quilts on PBS.
• Faith Ringgold's lesson and craft on story quilts for Project Articulate, a lovely free download.
• The International Quilt Study Center.
• American Textile Museum.
• The oh-so-pretty Textile Museum of Canada.
• La Conner Quilt and Textile Museum.
• The symbolism of Underground Railroad Quilts.

Alabama ghosts and haints: Music, storytellers, and graves on an un-morbid note.

Something about the thunderstorms and all this cemetery research I've been doing lately brings home the cravings for an Alabama ghost playlist. What is "ghost music"? I feel it when I hear it. 

The Pine Hill Haints, an Auburn-hailing Alabama folk-punk band composed of Jamie Barrier on guitar and vocals, wife Katie “Kat” Barrier on washboard and mandolin, Matt Bakula on washtub bass and tenor banjo, and Ben Rhyne on snare drum, keep hopping through my head. 

The band's name comes from the Pine Hill Cemetery in Auburn, Alabama where they occasionally used to practice- a beautiful cemetery ripe for wanderings, wonderings, and revelations that slip in through conversations. 

In Dave's words:

Pine Hill Haints attracts an audience that likes songs about the cursed nature of the world—people that have gone to the dark side and found it uplifting. Real weirdos and rebels gather around this band and its junk instruments. The rawness feels natural and natural feels honest. People who believe in things you’re not supposed to believe are drawn to Pine Hill’s spooky bosom and folklore. Alabama’s self-proclaimed punk band makes music that embraces doom and the great lonesomeness of life in order to find everlasting joy. This basically makes Pine Hill Saints a good band for the end of the world.

And, thanks to Dave's interview, we also learn that singer Jamie Barrier actually loves Alabama. Big, scary words to suggest in Los Angeles, where loving Alabama suggests you like to dress in military uniforms and be the hero of your local Civil War reenactment.

Why do you stay in Alabama?

 I love Alabama too much. I enjoy it. I like forests, creeks. I like my family. I like the music. I like L.A. and everywhere else as well. I’m not saying we are better than nobody else. It’s just where I’m from.

Have you ever seen a ghost?

Possibly. But I don’t think I want to get into that.

Why not?

 Let’s just leave it at this, anything is possible.

Maybe the Haints were raised on the ghost tales of Kathryn Tucker Windham. Or maybe they know that you can't live in Dixie without running into (or away from) a ghost or two. The dead are just part of the scenery. So maybe Barrier believes more than he lets on. He recounts a local ghost tale in a different interview:

Right down from my momma and daddy’s house there’s this old trail. The Choctaws claimed that trail was there before they ever arrived. Today, it’s called the Natchez Trace. On that Trace, people see these white horses—many people have said they’ve seen a white horse. Sometimes, two horses walking side by side—that’s like some sign of death. Well, there was these thieves who murdered and blundered their way down the trace. Right south of Alabama on the trace is a place where the grass doesn’t grow. People say that’s where the witches dance. Nothing will grow there. And these thieves ran up and down the trace, heedless of the witches, heedless of the hard-boiled Baptist preachers and everybody else, robbing, thieving, and cutting throats. And they’d run down to New Orleans from Natchez, Mississippi and spend their money. One of those boys got caught in the little town on the Mississippi/Alabama state line, and they cut his head off, stuck it on a post outside of town, and left it there to rot until it became this white skull. The other guy had seen the skull, but he kept on killing and robbing. But he got caught and while he was in jail he saw the white horse walking up the trace and looking at him. And right after he saw the horse, this old lady came out of the woods and took the skull from the post. People said that she ground that skull into powder.

Ah yes, time for some Alabama ghost music. Burn the playlist and find yourself a little ole grave to haunt. 

First a few from The Pine Hill Haints.

You're Gonna Need Somebody on Your Bond (mp3)

All My Rowdy Friends Are Dead (mp3)

Don't Wait for Six Strong Men to Carry You to Church (mp3)

Now the story of the Ghost of Old Salem and Ghost Town Road.

Now a little ditty from Alabama storyteller Kathryn Tucker Windham.

Tree Sitting (mp3)

A special one from the deserving Balthrop, Alabama, a sublime little name for a band if I must comment. 

Grave (mp3)

 And one more foot-tapping, skirt-swinging tune from The Pine Hill Haints.

My Bones Are Gonna Rise Again (mp3)

Marietta Johnson, an "old-school" educational entrepreneur in Alabama.

 

In 1907, Marietta Pierce Johnson (1864-1938) founded the School of Organic Education in Fairhope, as an experiment to study child development and provide children with the appropriate conditions for optimal development. Established within the Fairhope Single-Tax Colony, the school continues to operate in the community of Fairhope, and the original school is now a museum.

Marietta Pierce was born outside Minneapolis, Minnesota, on October 8, 1864, into the farming family where she was one of eight children. As a young woman, she studied education at the Third State Normal School (now St. Cloud State University) in Minnesota and then taught in elementary and secondary schools in that state.

Marietta Pierce married John Franklin Johnson. They lived together in Minnesota before moving to Montana where they worked as ranchers. Learning of the Fairhope Single Tax Colony and its utopian community in Gulf Coast Alabama, the couple moved to Fairhope in 1901. Johnson taught in the Fairhope public school for a year before following her husband to Mississippi to run a pecan orchard. After its failure, the couple moved back to Fairhope, and Johnson took charge of the Fairhope Public School, overseeing its first high school graduating class in 1903.

One of the early pioneers of progressive education, Johnson studied the theories of child development promoted by pediatrician Nathaniel Oppenheim in his book, The Development of the Child (1898), as well as the social criticism of Enlightenment philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau and the educational theories of education reformers Friedrich Froebel and John Dewey. Through a blending and expansion of their work, she developed her unique philosophy of education.

In 1907, Fairhope resident Lydia Comings urged Marietta Johnson to found a school based on her philosophy. With Johnson's two sons and four other students, she established her experimental Organic School of Education school in a small cottage on Church Street in downtown Fairhope. Having studied Oppenheim's theories of child development, Johnson's vision included the idea that the school's curricula should be structured and progress according to his concept of the stages of biological and neurological child development. She believed that the interests of children should be respected so that they could develop the power to think for themselves. Her concept of instruction, which she called organic education because it focused on the child as a complete "organism," was a drastic departure from the traditional teaching methods of the day, which viewed adults as all-knowing and children as miniature, but incomplete, adults. In Johnson's organic model, teachers were charged with presenting academic subjects in a natural setting that did not pressure children to conform to a rigid or regimented schedule. Students proceeded at their own individual and comfortable pace.

According to Johnson, childhood should be viewed as its own stage and not merely preparation for adulthood. Basic to the concept of organic education is the assumption that children are born to learn, that they want to learn, and that it is the job of educators to facilitate this by being aware of each child's progression through the stages of development. She also believed that external standards tended to foster self-consciousness and thus the school had no tests or grades. Each child was simply expected to attend class and put forth his or her very best effort. She believed that the order of development of the child's nervous system must not be violated and therefore all formal work such as reading, writing, and use of figures was postponed until age eight or nine. Classes were small and a sense of cooperation rather than competition prevailed.

Johnson was a proponent of a unique philosophy of progressive education inspired by her contemporary Rudolf Steiner and Maria Montessorri. She did not believe any child should be allowed to fail.

The non-profit Marietta Johnson School of Organic Education celebrated its 100th year of continuous operation in 2007. It is located on a four-acre campus off of Pecan Avenue in Fairhope and continues to operate according to its founder's ideals. The school offers instruction for children in kindergarten through eighth grade with a Learning Center for home-schooled high school students. The Marietta Johnson Museum is located in the original school house at 10 South School Street in Fairhope.

William Christenberry, a reluctant Alabama artist.

William Christenberry is a photographer, painter, and sculptor who works with personal and somewhat mythical themes growing out of his childhood experiences in Hale County, Alabama. He was raised in Tuscaloosa, and credits Walker Evans, William Faulkner, James Agee, and Willem deKooning with influence.

"I'm not unique in this. Artists are always seeing things. Obviously your eyes are always open, but you're always sort of looking at natural things, found objects, and associating them in one way or another with what you do. You are perceiving. I'm always looking around. I think most visual artists are visual animals in a way. We are avaricious. The eye must be avaricious. Everything can be subject matter. Anything can be subject matter."

"I'm not terribly taken with the idea of being categorized as an Alabama artist or a Southern artist. I'm an artist. My subject matter tends to come out of what I know best, and that I feel most strongly about, which is a regional thing. My work tends to be regional, but I do hope that my work could be accepted, certainly looked upon universally, and I think that is what every artist hopes to achieve."

"There are a few artists in our past, who have social and political commentary in their work, and I admire them both. One was Francisco Goya, the Spanish painter, and Picasso when he painted his masterpiece Guernica. Picasso said, "Painting is not meant to decorate houses. It is an offensive and defensive weapon of war against the enemy." Meaning injustice, prejudice, whatever-the negatives of life, and that’s stuck with me. It’s always been crucial in my thinking."

"Well, most of the things that I use are things that have lost their use to most people. I have a grouping, I avoid the word collection, of found outdoor advertising signs. And I began to appropriate these a long time ago before they became real collector’s items– Top Snuff signs Coca-Cola, Grapette Soda, Royal Crown soda– but the more weathered they were, the more rusted and bullet ridden, the more they interested me, much more so than the mint condition ones."

More:

• The "Klan Tableau" in Washington.
• Lectures, videos, and thoughts from Christenberry at Southern Spaces.
• Christenberry's audio commentary on Lens Culture.
• Christenberry on NPR.
• Article on memory and places in the UK Guardian.
• At the Museum of Contemporary Photography.

The Doo Nanny is on my calendar for next year.

Thanks to Shannon Eileen's blog post, I have discovered something else to get excited about. Because I'm not already overly-excited about so many happenings and happynings. 

Begun as a roadside folk art show in 1996, inspired by the Burning Man festival, the Doo-Nanny is now located on a beautiful 80 acre farm in Seale, Alabama. It includes a wacky "lo-fi" film festival, fun food, the Possum Trot auction, and an eclectic assortment of music and activities. Not to mention the Doo Nanny Burn. When I read the following invitation on the festival website, there was no doubt in my mind that they were talking to the Coryells:

 Come all ye inventors, movie makers, ballerinas, bikers, morticians, bakers, artists, conspiracy theorists, scientists, foodies, eco-whatevers, moonshiners, comedians, fire-spinners, yodelers, he-shes, animal-trainers, pickle-makers, party girls, sock monkeys, stackers, jugglers, musicians, whittlers, spankers, fisherpersons, beggers, wanderers, and map-makers.......

The Outsider Art Show is primarily rooted in southern folk art, but the doors of interpretation are wide open. Oh my goodness. The plan is hatching. Somehow, I have to convince the Adams Family, who now resides in nearby Columbus Georgia, to camp out with us that weekend. We could buy a vendors pass or two for $50, including camping, party admission, and admission for one helper / partner. Children are free.  

Butch Anthony, also known as The Museum of Wonder, is quite the visionary. He started building his log cabin in 1988 and is still tweaking it. It is made from heart pine salvaged from an old mill in Columbus, Ga., and put together with the help of his home-made rigging — cables and pulleys strung from the branches of pine trees. Mr. Anthony made the chandeliers on a screened porch from twigs and cow bones; the 1930s quilts came from his Possum Trot auction.

Mr. Anthony dresses exclusively in Liberty bib overalls (he owns 25 pairs).  

The house is built into the side of a hill, and the bedroom is half-underground, which keeps it cool in the summer. A rusty mattress spring from an antique bed makes a wall hanging; ladder-back chairs have seats woven from old ties. 

A visionary man needs a visionary woman. When Ms. Chanin and Mr. Anthony met, he told her he was living in a log cabin in the woods. "But this was like a vision," she said. Now, his aesthetic and hers — she makes hand-stitched clothes and home goods under the Alabama Chanin label — have merged. Mr. Anthony and Natalie Chanin's 4-year-old daughter, Maggie, jumps on a bed next to a bathroom with "windows" made from "beaver sticks," a.k.a. twigs chewed by beavers.

Mr. Anthony describes his art, which includes old family portraits (not his own) embellished with skeletons or creatures of his own imagining, as "intertwangleism." His definition: "Inter, meaning to mix," he said, "and twang, a distinct way of speaking. If I make up my own 'ism,' no one can say anything or tell me I'm doing it wrong."

The kitchen is heated by a wood-burning stove. The mantel was salvaged from an old house being torn down nearby; the pine cones are from Longleaf pines, a historical Southern original that Mr. Anthony is reinstating on his property.

Credit goes to excellent reporting and photos from The New York Times.

The most beautiful cemetery in the South: Myrtle Hill.

Words cannot do Myrtle Hill much justice. The only uniformity is found in the graves of the Confederate soldiers, which has always struck me as tragic to have a standard of uniform, nondescript headstones for the graves of soldiers, to leave them undistinguished and standardized in death. 

The other graves, stacked, nestled, and splendid, add layers to the already-dizzying landscape of the hill. It is hard to stand still; the effect is one of floating, the angels are no surprise.

There is a postscript to every wandering and a tombstone for every phase of life. We must learn to leave the graveyard and engage the world without forgetting to honor what has moved beyond us. For those of us who are especially sentimental, a tattoo marks the spot.

• The PDF afterword to Poems of Cemetery Places.
• Epitaphs magazine, "your online source for cemeteries", a publication from The Cemetery Club.
  
• Poetry Cemetery, which begins with a quote from Benjamin Franklin who said,"Show me your cemeteries, and I will tell you what kind of people you have."
  
• The Southern Graves blog, "preserving the past, one tombstone at a time".
• Magnolias and Peaches, an online resting place to sit beneath and arbor and honor beautiful graves.
• "A Soldier's Cemetery", a poem from the First World War by John William Streets.
• "Every poem an epitaph: The Protestant cemetery in Rome", an article by Jessica Helfand which features a fascinating cemetery abroad.
• "The White Pilgrim: Old Christian Cemetery", a poem by Brigit Pegeen Kelly.
• "The Pleasures of Melancholy", a poem written by Rev. Warton in 1747.
• Girl of the Graveyard blog, one girl's personal tribute to the graveyards on her way.

A weekend trip to Rome, Georgia.

The entire household is abuzz with more than flies today. We're abuzz with excitement over our coming weekend trip to Berry College, Patrick's alma mater, located in the lovable city of Rome, Georgia.

Saturday morning, we'll cruise into town just in time to catch the local Farmer's Market. I'm thinking we'll pick up breakfast from a nice man in overalls who can tell Max about the kind of soil required for that okra he wants to plant in our garden next year.

Then maybe we'll check in to our shared cottage and start scouring the scene for blond babies, pregnant ladies, and red-haired Vikings. Rumor has it that we'll be going for a group hike and a possible swim, which is close as it gets to heaven in my book. I've visited Berry twice before with Patrick, but there is so much I want to explore there... so many little stories he's shared with me. Among the intriguing things he has mentioned:

• 15 miles of horse trails. And horses.
• The mysterious swimming hole which turns out to be a reservoir.
• The beloved House O' Dreams.
• The Longleaf Pine Trail and little sights along the way.
• Stories and tales about Martha Berry, "the Sunday lady of Possum Trot".
• Possum Trot Church, which we visited.
• The lovely Old Mill, which we also visited.
• The student-cultivated gardens.
• The infamous Schroeder's Deli.

If you're traveling to or around Rome, Georgia, don't bother to wear a flower in your hair. But do bother to burn a good CD for drives along the back roads my husband loves so dearly. And consider adding the following to your itinerary:

• Rome's Clock Tower, atop Neely Hill overlooks downtown Rome and houses a collection of works by local artist Chuck Schmult.
• Ye olde Train Depot also houses the Visitor's Center. 
• The Myrtle Hill Cemetery is legendary for its beauty as well as its legends. At the confluence of the Etowah and Oostanaula Rivers, it includes the grave of First Lady Ellen Wilson and moments steep with Confederate history.
• Cave Spring, located fifteen miles southwest of Rome, is a teeny tiny town with less than 1,000 residents but over 90 buildings and houses listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In the middle of town is Rolater Park, home to the second largest swimming pool in the State of Georgia, and one of only five pools in Georgia built in the shape of the state. That takes the cake. 
• Ridge Ferry Community Park is home to the Farmer's Market, as well as an awesome playground sure to keep parents busy.
• The Rome Area History Museum runs regular "cocktail cruises down the Coosa".
• Fishing is all the rage at the Lock and Dam Park. Campers welcome. The Lock and Dam Trails look pretty impressive as well.
• Armuchee Park nestles against Armuchee Creek off of Jones Mill Road, It is a scenic 31 acre park with basketball courts, fishing, creek, picnic shelter, playground, 3 softball/ baseball fields, and 2 unlighted tennis courts. Lots of green space.
• Etowah Indian Mounds in nearby Cartersville.

W.J. Cash's "Mind of the South."

Reading W.J. Cash is like watching a country club social group learn how to buckdance. The Mind of the South, while earnest and thoughtful, leaves one with the aftertaste of fried chicken wings from a fancy restaurant. A certain type of awkwardness or unfamiliarity with the subject leads to the plague of verbosity-- the good fish splash away in the next terrific wave of words. In sum, the author's discomfort becomes one's own, and the book's argument takes backseat to the author's theatrics.

Cash's story from the Wikipedia entry is worth quoting in full from here:

Cash, with his wife of five months, Mary Ross Northrop, also a writer and contributor to The News, embarked on the trip to Mexico in late May, 1941. Having been invited by University of Texas president Homer Rainey to provide the main commencement address to the 1941 graduating class on June 2 in Austin, Cash accepted and addressed some 1,500 graduates from the steps of the Main Building, focusing on the main developmental socio-psychological themes of the South through history into the modern era, titled "The South in a Changing World"; (a recording of this half hour speech still survives and is available for listening at the University of North Carolina Southern Historical Collection in Chapel Hill, as well as online).

On July 1, 1941, after complaining to Mary during the previous 24 hours of being followed by Nazi spies, Cash was found hanging by his necktie from a bathroom door hook in the Reforma Hotel in Mexico City. Though there was no note of suicide and no physical evidence other than the fact of his being hanged, the Mexico City authorities concluded his death to be suicide. Cash's remains were cremated under rushed circumstances, and against his parents' telegraphed wishes. Thus, no examination of his remains was ever conducted in the United States.

At the time, Mexico City had a large contingent of Nazi spies, the largest in North America outside of the New York City area. The largest single spy arrest in United States history, netting 32 spies in and around New York City, occurred during the weekend of June 28-29, 1941, becoming national headline news on June 30, the same day Cash began complaining to his wife of being followed by Nazi spies.

Since 1933, the Ambassador to Mexico had been Josephus Daniels, a genial and popular elder statesman, former newspaper editor for The Raleigh News & Observer, former Secretary of the Navy under Woodrow Wilson, and good friend to President Roosevelt, who had his first government job as Assistant Secretary of the Navy under Daniels. Although the Ambassador's son Jonathan Daniels, had co-sponsored Cash for the grant which took him to Mexico, the elder Daniels did not know Cash and had only met with him briefly during the month prior to his death.

For reasons which were not stated, on July 12, 1941, Daniels asked Mexico's foreign minister to arrest three particular German nationals, suspected of being principals of the Nazi spy ring in Mexico. Daniels had never made such a request in the whole of his previous eight-year tenure as Ambassador. Those arrests did not occur, though 240 Nazi spies were arrested and deported from Mexico after Pearl Harbor, in February, 1942.

Cash's essay form of "The Mind of the South" is freely available online thanks to its original publisher, Mencken's The American Mercury. For a look at Cash's political implications, Evan Jones' excerpt extravaganza for Counterpunch takes the cake. Louis D. Rubin surveys Cash after 50 years for The Virginia Quarterly.

More books on Southern identity and culture:

• Redefining Southern Culture: Mind and Identity in the Modern South by James C. Cobb
• Away Down South: A History of Southern Identity by James C. Cobb
• The Southern State of Mind edited by Jan Nordby Gretlund.

The tornado and Roland Harper: A little bit of local history.

A photo of the aftermath of the 1932 Alabama tornado, courtesy of the Hoole Library blog, where you can find more information about the Roland Harper Collection which includes this (and many other) photos. Who was this fellow named Roland Harper?

 

Roland Harper was a field botanist by profession, and took countless photographs during his long professional life. He served as staff botanist at the Geological Survey of Alabama in Tuscaloosa from 1905 until his death. As a tireless field investigator , Harper recorded his frequent journeys with journal notes and photographs. He was one of the last botanists to visit and describe the original vegetation of the Southeast before it was drastically altered by human activity. 

Born August 11, 1878 in Farmington, Maine, he moved to Georgia with his family in 1887. While earning an engineering degree from the University of Georgia, Harper took his first botany class and became an avid student of local flora. In 1899, Harper entered the Botany program at Columbia University and earned his PhD in 1905. His work in documenting the fauna of the Southeast was extensive. 

Harper's work for the GSA resulted in the publication of five volumes summarizing the plant life and natural resources of the state. Two volumes on the economically important plants of Alabama appeared in 1913 and 1928. Harper then published volumes on the natural resources of the Tennessee Valley region in 1942, Alabama forests in 1943, and Alabama weeds in 1944. These works remain key resources for understanding Alabama's plants and their uses.

 

Harper began working on censuses during the early 1900‘s, a time when social reformists began using number and statistics to attempt to improve the conditions of life for many Americans. During this time, Harper was introduced to statistics and demographics, ways in which social scientists measure characteristics of large social groups and populations. 

Unfortunately, Harper’s use of statistics did not directly improve the quality of life for local residents. Many of his later letters-to-the-editor, which he based on such statistics, compared seemingly disparate cultural elements to arrive at ugly conclusions. Colleagues began to question his scientific credibility. 

Harper's reputation as a scientist was further damaged by two other themes in his non-scientific writings: his belief in eugenics and the dangers of communism. His writings on eugenics during the 1930s contain many of the themes—the application of natural selection to human populations and strict standards for "clean living"—that were also raised by supporters of Nazism, and his works of the 1950s reflected the inordinate fear of communism of that time.

 

In her new book about Harper, Elizabeth Findley Shore describes him as “an interesting man”. Ms. Shore first learned about Harper from her mother and uncle, whose parents rented a room to the “eccentric botanist” in their childhood home at 329 University Boulevard. Apparently, Harper’s mind never strayed far from his work. He couldn't just ride the train or later an automobile and relax. He would look intently at the wayside and make notes, constantly, on the flora he observed. Harper claimed to be able to make accurate lists of plants along the way. Many colleagues scoffed, but it later was agreed he was remarkably accurate. Harper also declined to learn to drive, so, over the course of his career, he probably hiked a hundred thousand miles, on the ground, camping out, which was rather brave of him since he had a phobia of snakes as well as driving.

Indeed, many aspects of Harper’s life were unconventional. His did not marry until he was 63 years old. He and his wife had no children. 

Although he worked for 35 years here in Tuscaloosa at the Alabama Geological Survey with his office in the center of campus, he refused to teach any courses. His mother wrote to him at one point, “I cannot understand you... You must be crazy.” Refusing to teach, or leaving teaching, is regarded by many as spurning a mission of significant public service, but Harper would have nothing to do with it. He loathed teaching, so he took a lower salary and filled his notebooks and journals.

 

Harper passionate interest in longleaf pine forests, which were largely being destroyed at the time of his studies, led him to a critical discovery. He realized that the longleaf stands can withstand fire but, more importantly, that they need fire to keep down undergrowth, discourage hardwoods, and germinate their seeds. Since total fire suppression was the doctrine of the day, the US Forestry employees mocked him. We now know that Harper’s insights were correct, and total fire suppression is no longer the reigning theory. In 1949, the longleaf pine was named Alabama state tree. 

Among the many materials left by Harper, there is a map of the economic botany of Alabama circa 1913 which he made while working at the GSA. You can find a copy of this map in archives at the Hoole Library.

Harper died April 30, 1966, and was buried in Tuscaloosa Memorial Park. Most of Harper's personal and professional materials, including diaries, journals, publications, and photographs, are housed in the W. S. Hoole Special Collections Library at the University of Alabama. Smaller collections are found among the holdings of the Alabama Museum of Natural History and the Geological Survey of Alabama.

 

 

 

 

You can also download a pdf copy of the Tuscaloosa Biography for Roland Harper I created for our 2010 Local History Workshop. Print and share. 

Reading the Alabama summers.

Summer at our house is a time to get lost in books and small bruises of the sort acquired as badges from "playing in the woods". Since I've had a few friends ask for summer reading suggestions, I thought I would share what tastes like sweet summer reading lists for the Coryell Casa (with a little bias towards Southern writers and those who know how to stare down mosquitos). Warning to the hip and current: There is no bias towards novelty on these lists. 

For the people who cover their bruises with capris:

1. The Prince of Frogtown by Rick Bragg. My review and excerpts here.
2. Love in a Dry Season by Shelby Foote. Sun reading.
3. Cleaving: A Story of Marriage, Meat, and Obsession by Dennis and Vicki Covington. Birmingham writers who walked the line.
4. The Forge by T.S. Stribling. A disturbing classic.
5. The Man Who Cried I Am by John A. Williams. Race, identity, the "me" generation, and coming of age.

For the people who don't notice the bruises until their children point them out:

1. Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle by Chris Hedges. Thought-provoking and stimulating. Note the homeschooling implications of Hedges' conclusions.
2. The Ballad of America: The History of the United States in Song by John Anthony Scott. A history of American folk songs. Great to share and read aloud on long car trips.
3. Telling Memories Among Southern Women: Domestic Workers and Their Employees in the Segregated South by Susan Tucker. Eye-opening.
4. If I Were a Carpenter: Twenty Years of Habitat for Humanity by Frye Gaillard. Rich local history that enlivens the landscape and inspires its inhabitants.
5. Listen to Me Good: The Story of An Alabama Midwife by Margaret Charles Smith. Illuminates local midwifery traditions in a compelling, personal narrative.

For the munchkins and fairy-lovers who live in the land where bruises are the daily costume:

1. All Over Alabama by Laurie Parker. A geography lesson with lovely illustrations.
2. The Cow of No Color: Riddles and Justice Tales from Around the World by Nina Jaffe and Stephen Zeitlin.
3. The Oxford Book of Animal Poems by Michael Harrison and Christopher Stuart-Clark. Poems about every animal you can imagine. And then some.
4. A is for Amazing Moments: A Sports Alphabet by Brad Herzog and Melanie Rose. Detailed and attractive survey of various sports and athletes. 
5. Leaving Gee's Bend by Irene Latham. A lovely excuse for a field trip to Gee's Bend.
6. I Took A Walk by Henry Cole. And you will.
7. Forest Explorer: A Life-Size Field Guide by Nic Bishop. 

Also take a peep at this list of Alabama authors and their books to sate more specific longings.

Local learning.

A new website for learning about local folk arts was just unveiled, and this one is specifically targeted to children. Local Learning is funded by the Maxine Greene Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. It replaces our  the pioneering CARTS.org, which launched in 1997 and was among the Internet’s first arts education web sites.Of special interest is the Regional Resources section, which links to local agencies and resources. They've tried to define folk arts and folk arts in education for a general audience as well as for educators. 

Since everyone should be a historian of their own milieu, Local Learning also provides some dandy and simple tools to do just that. Go forth and share.

Johnny Shines in Holt.

This past Saturday, Patrick stayed home with Milla while Bunica and I went to the 1st Annual Johnny Shines Blues Festival in Holt, a few miles away from our home. It was lovely- the blues always make me so happy, such a beautiful tradition and amazing slice of history. The festival itself took place in the backyard of Carol Shines (pictured above), Johnny's daughter, who made all of us feel at home. One kind lady offered Max and Micah free hot dogs and juice after they wore themselves out dancing and wrestling together. I missed having a camera so so much (our camera is dead and we've missed SO MANY amazing moments to photograph), but my mom took a few photos and made a video in which you can watch the munchkins break it down.

Leave it to Debbie Bonds and Carol Shines to present a Hungarian bluesman in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Enter Little G. Weevil, whose accent added a special touch to his blues performance.

I'll share a Little G. Weevil tune soon... 

Free family fun in Tuscaloosa: A running list with the first 21.

Borrowing from the lovely blog post at TuscMoms on free fun with kids, I thought I'd add a few more fun summer freebies in the Tuscaloosa area. Here is my running list. If I can find 50, I'll be pleased. Aim high, right? Oh, and when I say "free", I mean that there should be no ticket or entry cost. Gas and food might still cost you something.

1. Free summer movies at Cobb 16 Theatres from June 15th to August 6th at 10 am.

2. Free storytime at Barnes and Noble on Saturday mornings at 11:00 am throughout the summer.

3. Make a Splash reading program at the Tuscaloosa Public Library.

4. Going for a hike and picnic at Hurricane Creek Park. (Here is E. O. Wilson waxing poetic about our own Hurricane Creek.)

5. Playing in the water fountain near the Black Warrior River Landing (near the Black Warrior River Marker). If you come at the right time, you can watch the Bama Belle set off or return from a voyage. Bring swimsuits, towels, and water.

6. Planning a day hike on the Rocky Branch Trail.

7. Learning about American novelist Richard Yates and then visiting the place where he lived out his last years in Tuscaloosa.

8. Exploring Forever Wild's Sipsey River Swamp Preserve to learn more about swamp ecosystems.

9. Going on a historical adventure in search of the mysterious Black Warrior Town. Bring some Davy Crockett legends to read along the way (probably a 45-minute drive).

10. Playing in the fountain at Annette Shelby Park.

11. Hunt for signs of the endangered flattened musk turtle at Turkey Creek Nature Preserve. Bring a swimsuit for the lovely swimming hole.

12. Printing a copy of Alabama Gardener's Calendar and getting to work.

13. Visiting the dog park and all the fun, fancy dogs at the old University golf course (next to the Tuscaloosa Arboretum).

14. Swimming and searching for Cahaba lilies in West Blocton.

15. Volunteer with the Interfaith Environmental Initiative of Alabama and "live out E.O. Wilson's dream". Or just teach your children how to love and respect their world starting with Alabama Rivers.

16. Play frisbee golf at Bowers Park. Or just hike the gnarly frisbee golf trails.

17. Make a day of Lake Harris. Bring water-friendly hiking shoes.

18. Pick some blueberries and make a cobbler or pie at Leavelle's Berries. Restrooms and picnic area available. For details, call 339-7723.  Open: Monday Wednesday and Saturday 7:00am until dark. 17952 Foxfire Road, Buhl, AL 35446 Directions: From Tuscaloosa: west on I20-59 take Fosters Exit 62, go straight through the flashing red light and follow Gainsville Road until it ends. Take a left onto Romulus Road for about 4.5 miles and turn right onto Foxfire Road. Go 2 miles & on the right will be a ‘Leavelle Farms’ sign. Early June through late July. Payment: Cash, Check.

19. Go on a William Christenberry photo hunt. Check out his book from the library or buy a copy and try to find the locations and then take your own versions. Let your little ones have a hand at it as well.

20. Visit the Veteran's Administration Hospital and find a veteran pen-pal or friend to sponsor.

21. Bring a shovel and some sand materials to build sandcastles at Snow Hinton Park.

Oil spills and soft spots.

When I was a child, I would often wake up on Saturday mornings with my little sister rocking in the hull of our little Hunter 27 sailboat on the Gulf of Mexico. Summers were filled with weekends at various marinas eating tuna fish sandwiches in our life jackets waiting to see where Mom and Dad would take us next with their navigation charts. So the oil spill breaks my heart because it looms, like a heart attack, with a mixture of inevitability and dread. If the oil hits the beaches of Orange Beach or gets to the Intercoastal Waterway, then our family investments will suffer and a gorgeous natural land will be damaged. 

Unlike the damage from a hurricane, which can be cleaned up with lots of money and manpower, the damage from an oil spill is neither easily cleaned nor easily quantified. There are the human costs, the Sean Johnsons of this world. Johnson who owns a seafood processing business, prays alongside the rest of the family at the Saint Michael's Church in Coden, Alabama, on May 16. Johnson is worried that the spill may cost him his business.

 

 

Rows of fishing boats sit idly on the docks at Bayou La Batre, Alabama. All fishing on the Gulf Coast has been shutdown. How scary that must be for generations of fishermen who have learned the trade through the family business and expected to pass it on to their sons and daughters.

There are the ecological costs- the loss of natural resources, wildlife habitats, campgrounds, water (for all those who know what it is like to live through southern drought season, water is a big deal), bits and pieces of the beautiful natural landscape of America. You can see the wetlands near the mouth of the Mississippi River, home to many an American legend and tall tale, below.

There are the political and economic costs. For example, this negligent spill will make it more difficult for responsible companies to conduct offshore drilling in America. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger officially withdrew his support for a plan to expand oil drilling off the California coast a few weeks ago.

All this is very close to heart and home for me. Here is how the oil spill looked from a helicopter near Mobile a week ago:

 

Great web resources for further exploration of local history.

For chronological approaches and summaries of Tuscaloosa history:

• History of Tuscaloosa
• History of Alabama, written by noted historian Wayne Flynt

To explore archaeology and how archaeology is used by historians:

• Archaeology for Kids
• Oral Historians at the National Preservation Society
• Adventures in the Past from the National Bureau of Land Management

To explore local Native American culture and history:

• History of the Cherokee

To explore folk culture and folk arts, as well as the beautiful world of local storytelling:

• Folk Alley, folk music radio station
• Benjamin Lloyd's Primitive Hymns

To further explore local, community, and family heritage or traditions:

• The Heritage Education Network
• National Heritage Area
• How to read a cemetery

To explore the social and political history of our city and its surrounding areas:

• The History of Jim Crow

To explore historical landmarks and preservation, as well as buildings archaeology and architecture:

• Teaching with Historic Places
• A Walk Through Historic Places *
• National Register of Historic Places
• WebRangers

To learn more about the art of cartography and the uses of maps in the study of history:

• The History of Cartography
• Latitude and Longitude
• Navigation Education Materials
• Making Sense of Maps
• A Student's Guide to Mapmaking
• Map Analysis Worksheet
• Terra-Server
• Mapping My Spot in History *
• Historical maps of Tuscaloosa county
• Alabama Maps

To explore historical archives or special collections:

• Alabama Digital Preservation Network
• Spirit of the Southern Frontier *
• Early Americas Digital Archive
• Library of Congress Digital Archives and Collections

To watch documentary films and videos on specific topics in local history, or to explore these particular topics online (these sites are wonderful for self-motivated learners):

• Gandy-Dancers
• History of the Alabama Theatre Organ
• Sacred Harp Singing in Alabama, a PDF book
• Squint Eyes: Artist and Indian Scout

Wonderful education field trips around the state:

• Marietta Johnson Museum in Fairhope
• Moundville Archaeological Area in Moundville
• Africatown near Mobile
• Horseshoe Bend National Military Park (includes free teaching and curriculum materials)
• Pike Piddlers Storytelling Festival in Brundridge

Local History Workshop.

One of the most exciting projects I've touched in a long time, the Local History Workshop, has finally come together. Though we are full, we might be able to make exceptions for students who would really like to attend. 

Homeschoolers and history-interested parents can still enjoy the Resources page. Also, we will post videos showing a few of the speakers and activities when the workshop wraps up in October. 

So far, you can see most of the schedule online at the website above (though this doesn't provide much information about the nitty-gritty). The young historians will learn various skills, including primary source research, cartography, timeline construction, constructing secondary sources and narratives, interpreting archival materials, exploring 

They will also have the opportunity to be part of a Living Tuscaloosa Timeline on the evening of Friday, October 15th in which they will act out a character from Tuscaloosa history. A few of the persons we will be discussing include:

 

• Local family members
• Dinah Washington, "Queen of the Blues"
• Professor Hudson Strode, Renaissance scholar
• Samuel Minturn Peck, Alabama's first poet laureate
• Roland Harper, botanist
• W.S. Hoole
• Johnny Shines, blues musician
• The Tuscaloosa poets associated with the Southron literary journal
• John Beecher, poet, businessman and activist
• Amelia Gayle Gorgas
• Carl Carmer, journalist and author
• Rick Bragg, living journalist and author
• Chief Tuskaloosa
• T. Y. Rogers
• Byron Arnold, folk song collector
• Peter Bryce, doctor
• Millard and Linda Fuller, founders of Habitat for Humanity
• John Drish
• George Edwin Starbuck, poet
• Robert Jemison, Jr.

 

As the workshop progresses, I'll share some of the many interesting handouts and materials compiled for the benefit of our creative participants.

A few, for starters:

• An excerpt from "What Is Tuscaloosa" by Ben Windham, which we will use as a journal prompt for our own impressions of Tuscaloosa.
• Dinah Washington Biography Handout

In addition, the following have been used to frame and develop various activities and learning opportunities:

• "How Can I Use Oral History in School?"
• Children and Elders Sharing Stories: Lessons From Two Online Oral History Projects
• Oral History in the Classroom
• Oral History Activities
• Oral History Instruction Guide from the Virginia Folklife Association
• Maps and Globes Lesson Plans
• University of Alabama Digital Archives
• University of Alabama Hoole Special Collections Library
• Using Manuscripts and Archives, an online tutorial from Yale
• The Archivists Toolkit
• Bibliomania, a classic. No pun intended.
• Digital Archive of American Architecture
• Southern Mosaic
• US News Archives on the Web
• The Alabama Indian Tribe
• Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas
• "The Alabama-Coushatta Indians" by G.E. Moore
• Regional overview of American Indian clothing styles for southeast region
• Alabama Archaeology: Prehistoric Alabama
• "Yellowhammer: An Alabama Folk Tale"

(The image above is kept in the University of Alabama Hoole Special Collections Library, which can be accessed online through the Digital Collections. It shows a creek near "Lake Lorraine", which must have become Lake Lurleen or must have been eradicated by the construction of the Tombigbee Waterway.)

149 + home-schooling or family fun field trips in Alabama.

I'm going to keep this list updated as I discover new locations. Please email any suggestions my way, or add them as comments below. Also, I've rated the items below as we visited them.
**** Four stars indicates a must-see.
*** Three stars indicate good field trip, but pre-planning and lesson materials should be created beforehand for the field trip.
** Two stars indicates a fair field trip, but one requiring either too much money or inadequate materials for viewing and learning.
* One star indicates a no-go.

1. Alabama's Bartram Canoe Trail
2. The Center for the Study of the Black Belt in Livingston
3. Lee County Historical Society in Loachapoka
4. Alabama Scenic River Trail ****
5. Zelda Fitzgerald's Home in Montgomery
   
6. The haunted Choctawatchee River Bridge in Newton
   
7. Isabel Anderson Comer Museum & Arts Center in Sylacauga
8. Bellingrath Gardens & Home in Theodore
9. The Maize Cornfield Maze in Huntsville **
10. Homestead Hollow in Springville
11. Octagon House in Clayton
12. Capitol Park in Tuscaloosa ***
    
13. Places protected by The Nature Conservancy in Alabama
14. Southern Museum of Flight in Birmingham
15. Mary G. Hardin Center for Cultural Arts in Etowah County
16. Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
    
17. Aldridge Botanical Gardens in Hoover
18. Tuscaloosa Symphony Orchestra ***
    
19. Alabama Rural Heritage Foundation & Center in Thomaston
20. Pioneer Museum of Alabama in Troy
21. Moundville Archaelogical Park near Tuscaloosa ****
    
22. Alabama Women's Hall of Fame in Marion
23. Murphy African-American Museum in Tuscaloosa
    
24. The Iron & Steel Museum of Alabama in McCalla **
25. The Old Tavern in Tuscaloosa **
26. Paul W. Bryant Museum in Tuscaloosa **
    
27. Frank Jackson State Park in Opp
    
28. Gulf Coast Exploreum in Mobile
    
29. Cheaha State Park in Delta ****
30. Gaineswood in Demopolis
31. Bragg-Mitchell Mansion in Mobile
32. Conde-Charlotte Museum House in Mobile
    
33. Alabama Mining Museum in Dora
34. The Museum of Mobile
    
35. The Old Courthouse Museum in Monroeville
36. Burnt Corn Baptist Church in Monroeville
    
37. University of Alabama Arboretum in Tuscaloosa ****
    
38. The Library Theatre in Hoover
39. Westervelt-Warner Museum of American Art in Tuscaloosa ****
40. Helen Keller Birthplace in Tuscumbia
    
41. Ecoscape at Birmingham Southern College
42. Alabama State Capitol in Montgomery
43. Belle Mont Mansion in Tuscumbia
44. Confederate Memorial Park near Clanton
45. Petals From the Past in Calera ***
    
46. Alabama Music Hall of Fame in Tuscumbia
47. Birmingham Paleontological Society (go on a dig)
    
48. Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site and Tuskeegee Institute National Historic Site in Tuskegee
49. Rickwood Caverns in Warrior
50. Cathedral Caverns in Woodville
    
51. Heart of Dixie Railroad Museum in Calera
52. Crooked Creek Civil War Museum in Cullman
53. Monte Sano State Park in Huntsville
    
54. Alabama Center for Traditional Culture
55. Carnegie Visual Arts Center in Decatur
    
56. Meyer Planetarium in Birmingham
57. Burritt on the Mountain in Huntsville ****
    
58. Jesse Owens Memorial Park Museum in Danville
59. The Home of Hudson Strode in Tuscaloosa **
    
60. Clarkson Covered Bridge near Cullman ***
    
61. Selma to Montgomery National Voting Rights Trail in Hayneville
62. Early Works Museum in Huntsville ****
    
63. Sipsey Wilderness Area
    
64. Alabama Horseback Trail near Cullman
    
65. Russell Cave and Russell Cave National Monument in Bridgeport
    
66. Pepper Place Saturday Market in Birmingham ****
    
67. Imagination Place Children's Museum in Gadsden
68. John Looney Pioneer House Museum in St. Clair County
    
69. Dauphin Island Sea Lab
70. Sacred Heart Monastery in Cullman
71. Kirkwood Plantation in Eutaw
72. Orr Park in Montevallo ****
    
73. Horseshoe Bend in Daviston
    
74. Fort Gaines on Dauphin Island
75. George Washington Carver Interpretive Museum in Dothan
76. Biophilia Nature Center in Elberta
77. Florala State Park in Florala
    
78. Little River Canyon National Preserve
79. Lillian Hellman's Home in Demopolis
80. William Bradford Huie Library, Home, and Grave in Hartselle
    
81. Steele's Orchard in Cullman
    
82. Alabama Constitution Village in Birmingham
    
83. Bama Theatre in Tuscaloosa ***
    
84. Berman Museum of World History in Anniston
    
85. Battleship Memorial Park in Mobile ****
    
86. Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
87. Alabama River Museum in Franklin
    
88. Vulcan Park in Birmingham ***
    
89. Alabama Historical Radio Museum in Birmingham
    
90. Rikard's Mill Historical State Park in Beatrice ****
    
91. Tannehill Historical State Park near Bessemer ****
92. The North Alabama Railroad Museum in Huntsville ****
    
93. Huntsville Botanical Garden
    
94. McWane Science Center in Birmingham
95. Alabama Center for the Book in
    
96. Camp McDowell Environmental Center
97. The American Village in Montevallo
98. Rosa Parks Library & Museum in Montgomery
99. Alabama Dept. of Archives and History in Montgomery
    
100. Ozan Vineyard and Winery in Calera
     
101. Hurricane Creek near Cottondale ***
     
102. Dugger Mountain Wilderness Area near Birmingham
103. Children's Hands-On Museum in Tuscaloosa ****
     
104. The Birmingham Zoo
105. Ave Maria Grotto in Cullman ****
     
106. Spear-Hunting Museum in Summerdale
107. Museum of Wonder in Seale
108. Indian Mound & Museum in Florence
109. W.C. Handy Home, Museum, & Library in Florence
110. The Kennedy-Douglass Center for the Arts in Florence
     
111. US Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville ****
     
112. Pest Control Museum in Decatur
113. Children's Museum of the Shoals in Florence
     
114. Samuel Ullman Museum in Birmingham
     
115. Key Underwood Coon Dog Memorial Cemetery in Cherokee
116. The Rosenbaum House by Frank Lloyd Wright in Florence
     
117. Sloss Furnaces National Historic Landmark in Birmingham
     
118. The Birmingham Botanical Gardens
     
119. Mountain Longleaf National Wildlife Refuge
120. DeSoto Caverns Park in Childersburg ****
     
121. The Water Course in Clanton
122. Lake Lurleen State Park in Coker **
     
123. Karl C. Harrison Museum of George Washington in Columbiana
     
124. Alabama Museum of Natural History in Tuscaloosa ***
     
125. The National Center for the Study of Civil Rights & African-American Culture in Montgomery
     
126. Pond Spring, the home of General Joe Wheeler in Courtland
127. The Central-Carver Legacy Museum in Gadsden
128. The Gadsden Museum of Art
     
129. Magnolia Grove in Greensboro
130. Gulf State Park in Gulf Shores ****
     
131. Lake Guntersville State Park in Guntersville
     
132. Oak Mountain State Park in Pelham ****
     
133. MOWA Choctaw Cultural Center in Montgomery
134. Kentuck Art Center in Northport **
     
135. Heritage Center Museum in Scottsburro
136. Paul Grist State Park in Selma
137. Old Cahawba near Selma
138. Meaher State Park in Spanish Fort ***
     
139. Sci-Quest in Huntsville
140. Old Alabama Town in Montgomery
141. Gayle Planetarium in Montgomery
     
142. Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame in Birmingham
143. Wiregrass Museum of Art in Dothan
144. Birmingham Museum of Art
145. Hank Williams Museum in Montgomery
146. Vizzinni Farms & Winery in Calera
147. Morgan Creek Vineyards in Harpersville (special blueberry & muscadine wines)
     
148. Montgomery Zoo
149. The MOOseum in Montgomery
     

The home of Hudson Strode.

There is a very special house in our neighborhood-- a house that belonged to a literary scholar who endowed the home and surrounding property to the University of Alabama.

 

This man was known to most as Professor Hudson Strode. Prone to the extreme sensitivities of the artistic temperament, intensely creative and prone to bouts of nervous depression, Strode has been described to me by those who knew him as a "brilliant" man and one who did not count humility among the virtues.

Yesterday, I dragged Patrick and the little ones on a stroll to Strode's home. The home has a caretaker who lives in a little cottage, and occasionally houses visiting professors or other University homeless. I was hoping the house would be empty so that we might explore the grounds and tell ourselves neat stories (what Max and I call "conjecturing") about the area and its former inhabitants.

Unfortunately, the house did not seem unoccupied. Patrick and Max decided to inquire about visiting the house at the caretaker's cottage. A car and bicycle suggested that the caretaker was present. However, the unanswered knocks and yells convinced Patrick that the physical evidence would have been disregarded by Inspector Clouseau under the circumstances.

So we left the Strode home without visiting the grounds. Until next time I hear the Strode home's siren....

But I haven't shared much about this exceptional man; I've only taken you on the detour of his residence.

Back to the basics. According to This Goodly Land, an extraordinary website about Alabama's literary history:

Hudson Strode was born in Cairo, Ill. The family soon moved to Denver, Colo., and, after his father’s death, to Kentucky, where Strode’s mother taught at Clinton College. Strode’s mother remarried, and the family moved to Demopolis, Ala. As a boy, Strode was interested in drama, acting in school plays and attending professional performances. He graduated from high school at age sixteen and enrolled at the University of Alabama, where his interest in drama continued. Strode earned his AB in English literature in 1913 and went to New York City, where he received an MA from Columbia University in 1914. Strode spent two years as an English instructor at Syracuse University. During this period, he sold his first short story to McClure’s Magazine. In 1916, Strode returned to the University of Alabama to teach English literature and public speaking. Ineligible for the draft because he was underweight, Strode spent World War I arranging troop entertainments. After the war, he returned to the University of Alabama. In addition to his teaching duties, Strode was also directing plays, giving lectures and dramatic readings, and writing. His health began to suffer, and he had a nervous breakdown in the summer of 1926. After recuperating at a friend’s home for several months, Strode returned to work. He spent the summers of 1927 and 1928 at the MacDowell Colony, writing poems, book reviews, and a one-act play.

Strode suffered another breakdown in 1929, and he and his wife went to live in Bermuda so that he could recover his health. When they returned to Alabama in 1932, Strode published The Story of Bermuda, the first of a series of travel books he published in the 1930s and 1940s. In 1936, a request from one of his students, Harriet Hassell, prompted Strode to offer a fiction-writing class at the University of Alabama, which he continued to teach for twenty-five years. Many of his students won national writing competitions and, with Strode's assistance, found publishers for their short stories and novels. In the 1950s, Strode began working on a three-volume biography of Jefferson Davis. This work was published over a nine-year period and was generally well-received, although some reviewers questioned his sympathetic tone toward his subject. In 1961, Strode was made a Knight of the Royal Order of the North Star by King Gustav Adolf of Sweden in appreciation of his writings about Scandinavia. Strode retired from teaching in 1963. He continued to write and published another travel book in 1970 and a memoir in 1975.

What was so amazing about this man and his courses that burgeoning writers begged to study with him? To begin with, Prof. Strode believed the best books were never published. At a time when writing reflected the increasing commercialization of society, Strode stood above the fray in his insistence that "we do not write to sell". He believed in talent, and he believed in the talented voices and rich history of the South. In a Time magazine article published while Strode was still alive and teaching, his magnetism is apparent:

Professor Strode does not believe that everybody can be taught how to write. He restricts his four-session-a-week "clinic" to those who he thinks have genuine latent talent; twelve to 14 is the usual number. They read no textbooks, hear no lectures, spend their entire time writing, revising, polishing, criticizing each other's products, absorbing pungent Strode comments.

On occasion, students visit Strode's country retreat for discussion, with hunting & fishing trips on the side. They also go to his home, just outside Tuscaloosa, for conferences with him and his wife, who assists him in appraising manuscripts.

Alabaman Strode has an almost fanatical faith in the cultural present and future of the South. He takes great pride in the fact that all but four of his 14 students who have sold novels come from within 100 miles of Tuscaloosa.

Who were these students and what did they create? I've started a running list and would appreciate any additions that you might have:

• Thomas Hal Phillips studied under Strode. His novel about cottom, The Bitterweed Path, is available for browsing online.
• Borden Deal studied under Strode. His wife, Babs Deal, was also part of the Strode circuit.
• Harriett Hassell studied under Strode. Her novel, Rachel's Children, was set on a farm in Tuscaloosa.
• Robert Faucett Gibbons, whose short stories and novels brought him to national prominence, spent a fair share of time learning from Mr. Strode.
• Douglas Fields Bailey studied under Strode. He is known for his novel, Devil Make A Third.
• Catherine Rodgers McLain, best known for The Towers Inheritance, studied under Strode. Her bio notes that Strode believed each student "had at least one novel in them". Their job during his course was to get that novel out. Strode assisted many students in getting that novel published as well.
• Lonnie Coleman worked on Beulah while studying under Strode.
• Elise Sanguinetti was considered to be a protege of Strode's.
• Helen Norris was mentored by Hudson Strode. She is the author of numerous fictional works.
• Alabama poet John Finlay (and sometime Nashville Agrarian) was mentored by Hudson Strode and his wife. Strode helped Finlay secure funding for his graduate work.
• Winston Groom (and his mother) both studied under Professor Strode.

A few more butterflies to chase:

• Strode's papers are housed at the Hoole Special Collections Library in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. A PDF guide to the papers is available at the afore-linked.
• The Hudson Strode Program in Renaissance Studies at the University of Alabama.
• Three books authored by Strode are available for download at the Internet Archive, including his famous biography of Jefferson Davis.
• This Tuesday, February the 12th, the first director of the Hudson Strode Program in Renaissance Studies, Professor David Lee Miller, will return to the University of Alabama to offer a free lecture (open to the public) entitled "The Voice of Caesar's Wounds". I wish so much that I could attend...

A long day's journey into a night of Alabama "dead towns".

With two sick kids, my insomnia took on a sense of urgency the other night, so I stayed up until the sky turned a light orange reading Dead Towns of Alabama by Stuart Harris. Describing 83 Indian towns, 77 fort sites, and 112 colonial, state, and territorial towns that no longer exist, Harris offers a magnificent look at Alabama's past through the spectre of "vanished communities". For one who loves to read ruins, it was a long, exciting night. I can't wait to explore with the kids...

Since there are so many cool places mentioned, I thought I'd start posting a few and adding my own web discoveries to Harris' sometimes sparse information about the towns. This is the first of many such posts. Starting with two Indian villages...

BLACK WARRIOR'S TOWN (Taska luka, Tuscaloosa) Situated on the banks of the Black Warrior River, this Creek town was possibly at a site which is today just west of the Tuscaloosa Country Club, about 100 yards east of the intersection of Sanders Ferry Road and old Highway 11, in the city of Tuscaloosa. A group of "separatist" Creeks formed the town..... In 1811, Tecumseh, the famous Indian Shawnee orator who hoped to bring the Southern Indians to the Red Stick cause, was forced out of the Choctaw nation because that tribe had no desire to make war on the settlers.

• Davy Crockett's role in Black Warrior Town.

• The disputed location of Black Warrior Town has a Cullman component.

• Historical map of Black Warrior Town from google maps.

YUFALI (Nafolee, Upper Ufala) This upper Creek town was on the east bank of the Tallapoosa River, near the mouth of Eufaubee Creek in Macon County. During the early eighteenth century, this town was inhabited by the Amassi (or Massi) tribe, a band of unknown origin. In the census of 1760, there were 100 warriors living at Yufali. Tradition states that Osceola was born near this town.

• Historical map of Yufali.

• Wiki entry on Indian chief Osceola.

• If you own a GPS, try Latitude 311255N and Longitude 0850605W.

Bill and Anna's visit.

Bill and his lovely girlfriend, Anna (pronounced Ah-nah), came to visit from New Jersey this weekend. It was wonderful to see them! When they arrived Friday afternoon, Max and I were making junk collages, so we whipped out our finest fingerpaints and invited them to join.

Anna depicted a beaitful flower (above), while Bill took a more abstract expressionist approach (below).

On Saturday, after Max received his flu vaccine, we all piled into the Cadillac to learn more about the local folks at the Moundville Native American Festival. You can see Max wearing his Junior Flu Fighter badge below. I'm really not sure what he is doing with his hand...

Jack Thiele and Max roll down the hills.

A few Choctaw stop to pose for a photo. You can see Jack rolling with abandon in the background.

Max joined me in the Indian social dancing with trepidation-- "Mommy, my face isn't painted. How can I do an Indian dance if my face isn't painted?" Smart, sweet, always thoughtful Maxer.

After getting his face properly painted, Max and Bill pose for a few shots.

Can you see the dog Max drew on the front of his head piece?

After spending the afternoon at Moundville, we headed back to Firethorn for a lesson on how to make piroshki. Anna and Bill turned out the be quite the dicers. And, while Max preferred not to participate in the piroshki-making extravaganza, he loved playing with his own little bit of homemade play-dough. The piroshki were delicious; I ate more than God probably intended.

The art of John Kelley.

At church last Sunday, Patrick and I discovered that one of our fellow churchgoers painted for a living. John Kelley's work (bio here) is featured in galleries throughout the southeastern states. There is a story behind John's penchant for painting trees, or "treescapes", some of which Patrick and I found particularly compelling. Take a peep at his neat portfolio on your own.

His work is also featured on his one painting a day blog, On the Easel, where you can find smaller, more affordable versions of beauty. For example...

50 fun things to do in an Alabama autumn.

1. Visit The Great Pumpkin Patch in Hayden, Alabama and explore pumpkins, take hayrides, and get lost in the giant corn maze.
2. Make a pumpkin pie from scratch.
3. Take the family to the Okkervil River and Crooked Fingers show at the Workplay on October 1.
4. Celebrate the heritage of Alabama Indians at the Moundville Native American Festival on October 1st-4th.
5. Listen to storyteller Dolores Hydock's portrait of an Alabama mountain community in "Footprints on the Sky: Memories of a Chandler Mountain Spring" in Birmingham on October 9th.
6. Take a train ride on the Heart of Dixie Railroad through fall foliage and forests only to find yourself in a pumpkin patch at the journey's end.
7. Accept the dare and jump into a swimming hole as a final farewell to summer.
8. Pick fall wildflowers at the University of Alabama Arboretum. And take a hike to the treehouse to note which leaves are beginning their flirt with falling.
9. Get spooked at the 2008 UCP Fright Factory Haunted House in Tuscaloosa.
10. Pick a basket of acorns at Bowers Park and make an acorn wreath.
11. Attend a free concert named after a William Blake poem-- "Unless the Mind Catch Fire"-- at the Moody Music Building on October 13th. Because Blake is good, and minds need bonfires after babies.
12. Go to the Kentuck Festival of the Arts on October 18th and 19th.
13. Camp out in your own backyard and listen to the sounds of fall. (In our case, we can hear acorns falling from the oak trees on the tin roof of the shed.)
14. Pack a picnic and go for a wander-drive along back roads during the peak foliage period, as predicted by the Farmer's Almanac.
15. Camp at Little River Canyon.
16. Check out Ruffner Mountain Nature Center and hike Ruffner with the kids.
17. See folksinger Justin Roberts (a.k.a. "pure fun) at the Moody Music Building on campus this October 3rd.
18. Road trip the Alabama Fall Color Trail (including this handy-dandy suggested circle route).
19. Visit Athens this weekend for the 42nd Annual Tennessee Valley Old Time Fiddlers Convention.
20. Celebrate German culture at the 2008 Birmingham Oktoberfest on October 11th and 12th.
21. Head over to Vernon for the Annual Scarecrow Festival on October 11th. Maybe come home and make a scarecrow of yer own.
22. Attend one or two of the many marvelous events, lectures, hikes, explorations, and trips put on by the JSU Field School. Love these people and the work they do!
23. Explore the White's Mountain Bluegrass Festival on October 17th and 18th in St. Clair Springs. Remember-- bluegrass makes babies happy. I swear by the Hackensaw Boys.
24. Find a weekend to visit Tannehill State Park and perhaps peruse the many ruses and sales on Tannehill Trade Days.
25. Visit Ozan Vineyards for a wine-tasting train ride.
26. Stop by the Critter Creek Farm and Wildlife Center for Pumpkin Patch Days. Because one pumpkin is never enough.
27. Pick some apples at Steele's Orchard in Cullman. Then cook with apples.
28. Take ballroom dancing lessons from Farley's Ballroom in Tuscaloosa and then go waltz under the stars.

I'll keep adding as I get a few minutes...

The sweet side of Sister Schubert.

As if the deliciousness of Sister Schubert's orange yeast rolls isn't enough to distinguish this Alabama native, she also just so happens to have a heart of gold. In a profile by Thicket magazine:

After selling the company, Sister and George decided to invest some of their newfound fortune in causes close to their hearts. In 2001, they started the Barnes Family Foundation with the goal of tackling hunger and working for historic preservation. But things changed when Sister attended a local Rotary Club meeting where Kenny Payne, a missionary from Ukraine, was speaking. Moved by Payne’s impassioned speech about the plight of orphans in the former Soviet republic, Sister made plans to visit. In 2004, Sister made the trip. “When I stepped off the plan in Kiev, it was like the world went to black and white, like I’d stepped back in time 50 years.”

While in Ukraine, She visited The Abandoned Baby Center in Gorlovka and fell in love–with a young boy named Alexey, who was born with clubbed feet. The orphanage’s personnel explained that doctors were unable to perform much-needed surgery on Alexsey and that he would most likely remain in the orphanage. Touched by the story and the beautiful little boy, Sister and George decided to adopt Alex, now 6. Sister has lived up to her commitment to the children of Ukraine, and in June, The Barnes Family Foundation opened Sasha’s Home, a seven-apartment foster care facility that will house 55 to 60 children who are waiting for adoption. “With the Foundation, I’m just as hand’s on as with the bakery,” Sister says. “I have a very strong commitment to it.”

Yummy. And cool. I don't feel so guilty for my patronage of her rolls anymore....

Taking out the trash.

As I tightened the yellow plastic pulls on the latest garbage bag, relieved to see the seams still unstretched, Max danced around me:

"Why do we have to take out the trash, Mommy? Why do we have trash? What do we throw away?"

"Well, Maxer, we throw away trash. And, uh, trash is stuff we don't need. Anymore. Or stuff we never needed but somehow found in our possession..."

"But how do you know if it's trash, Mommy?"

Sometimes there are no honest answers to Max's queries. But it reminded me of an essay by Wallace Stegner called "The Town Dump". The excerpt:

Poetry is seldom useful, but always memorable. I think I learned more from the town dump than I learned from school: more about people, more about how life is lived, not elsewhere but here, not in other times but now. If I were a sociologist anxious to study in detail the life of any community, I would go very early to its refuse piles. For a community may as well be judged by what it throws away-- what it has to throw away and what it chooses to-- as by any other evidence.

Happy New Year!

Yesterday, we took a little field trip to Tannehill en route to Oak Mountain State Park, where we met Beth and Bryce for a brief (but always worthwhile) visit. Where else could we possibly hear the greatest rat epic ever told?

And where else could Max premiere the lovely dinosaur fleece hat given to him this Christmas by Aunty Carla? When Max fell asleep on the drive back from the detour through Helena, my eyes watered with hormonal joy to see his sweet, plump cheeks shaking like little bowls of jelly between his hat straps.

 

Other things that brought me joy on New Year's Day include...
- the very cool bouncing toys on the Tannehill playground
- Patty Griffin's new CD
- Micha's rocking and rolling through the terrain of my tummy
- the tankful o' gas that makes joyrides possible
- my mother's resolution to give me a compliment every day
- the kindness of strangers
- my husband's warm, warm arms which give me refuge from every little bothersome possibility
- tetanus shots
- "the ties that bind" us so faithfully

Since Patrick always takes the photos, Max and I must always play model. So we play our best here on the bridge leading to the old mill at Tannehill.

 

Max danced the Corn Dance at the Moundville Native American Festival.

Possibly this weekend: Cullman, Alabama.

Eva Frontier Days takes places in the nearby town of Eva, Alabama during the last weekend of September.  

Kicking off the 19^th annual event will be a Bluegrass Jam in the gymnasium of Eva School.  The highlight of the festival is the frog jumping contest, pig calling contest, and greased pig chase. All musicians are invited to bring their own instruments and join in on the Bluegrass Jam. Following the Bluegrass Jam is a hayride on Tuesday evening and on Thursday evening is good, wholesome community singing.  The festival concludes the following Saturday with the Antique Tractor and Car Show and a fun run.  The day wraps up with the always popular greased pig chase.

The first annual North Alabama Folk Festival also takes place the last weekend of this month on September 29th. For more events in Cullman this fall, see the Cullman Times' website.

More things to do in or near Cullman, Alabama:

• See the Crooked Creek Civil War Museum.
• Stay at the Good Hope Campground. Rent a kayak and drift down Flint Creek.
• Visit Ave Maria Grotto.
• Stop by the St. Bernard Abbey.
• Stay at Cullman Camp so you can hop into Bankhead.
• See Clarkson Covered Bridge. One of Alabama's largest covered truss bridges and the site of the 1863 Battle of Hog Mountain. Named to the National Register of Historic Places, the bridge is the centerpiece of a public park spanning a shallow creek surrounded by hiking trails and picnic grounds. Open Daily - 256-734-3369
• Visit Hurricane Creek Park for the gorgeous views.
• Check out Big Bridge Campground, which is a little further from Cullman.
• Make a pact to take the Alabama Horseback Trail.
• Camp at Smith Lake Park. Here is a PDF of all the information, including a map, that you need to know about Smith Lake.
• Take the mini train around the lake at Sportsman Lake Park. Or hike a few of the trails.
• Spend a little time with the Benedictine Sisters of Cullman at the Sacred Heart Monastery.

A Saturday visit to West Blocton.

The morning was slightly fall-scented, but the weather reports promised it would get warm enough to swim, so we decided to explore the Cahaba River. So we drove towards Birmingham and got off at the West Blocton exit, drove for a while, then turned right onto County Road 27. This is when we realized that we had no clue where to begin our exploration. Lo and behold, directly before us appeared The Country Store. So we hopped out of the car and asked the two lovely ladies behind the counter if they knew where we might find a swimming hole.

The ladies gave us directions to a place they called "Limestone Park". But our family outings always have a tendency towards wandering off course, so we discovered a few gems on our way to Limestone. From The Country Store, we continued up County Road 27 until we arrived at a 4-way stop. At the 4-way stop, we turned left onto Cahaba River Drive. We passed the West Blocton Food Center, a mini-grocery store, and just before we crossed a bridge over Caffee Creek, we passed an Italian Catholic Cemetary from 1901. It seems the area was heavily invested in coal mining during the Civil War period; Patrick thought he spotted a few "mine markers" along the way.

We struck unexpected gold after entering the Cahaba River Wildlife Management Area. Turn right into River Trace just before you go over the bridge crossing the Cahaba River (about 5 miles after turning onto Cahaba River Drive). You can pick up a map and a little packet about the Cahaba River wildlife, flora, and fauna at the wooden kiosk. Basically, the gravel road runs alongside the Cahaba and turns into a dirt road (which the Cadillac road as gracefully as might be expected). Along the gravel part of the road, you will find several stops with rope swings, catapults, and fun water activities. If you continue driving after the road turns to dirt, you will find our gold nugget- a swimming hole just after the shoals, lined by a cliff, and surrounded by gorgeous scenery. There are even little rapids that carry swimmers over moss-covered rocks for a natural water slide!

After playing in the water, we climbed back in the car to find the legendary Limestone Park. From River Trace, we took a right onto Cahaba River Drive and continued until we got to a 3-way stop, where we took a right onto County Road 65 (also known as Bulldog Bend Road). We drove no more than 5 miles before spotting blue canoe marked "Limestone Canoeing Club" on our left. So we turned left and kept driving past a few foreboding "Private Club" signs before pulling in to the Limestone Canoeing Club. We were greeted with grunts from three teenage boys propped in black inner tubes. Canoes can be rented for $30, and tubes can be rented for $10. Limestone is open on weekends through the month of October. You can find more Cahaba canoeing resources at the Cahaba River Society's website. There are a few great swimming and BBQ areas on site.

You might be able to reach someone at 205-926-9672, but you can definitely find Limestone at this address:
1531 Linestone Pkwy
Brierfield, AL 35035

The Cahaba River, all 190 miles of it, is the longest remaining free-flowing river in Alabama. Its watershed covers an area of 1,870 square miles, with water flowing through portions of 8 counties (Jefferson, St. Clair, Shelby, Bibb, Perry, Dallas, and small portions of Tuscaloosa and Chilton,), beginning at its source on the southern slope of Cahaba Mountain, northeast of Birmingham. .. The first 100 miles of the river, the Upper Cahaba, is the most mountainous, full of steep banks, high bluffs and rocky shoals. From its initial elevation of some 1,200 feet, the river descends at an average slope of 15 feet per mile for the first 25-30 miles, then falls more gradually at 2.5 feet per mile. After another 44 miles the river begins to flatten with a slope of just 0.6 feet per mile to its mouth.

• Cahaba WMA Bike Trails 
• Cahaba WMA Hunting Information
• Cahaba River WMA map in PDF format
• Cahaba River Society
• Canoe Access Points along the Cahaba River
• 2007 Canoe Trips, including the Moonlight Trips

Visiting Eutaw, Alabama.

The Black Belt Folk Roots Festival earned a spot on our lazy, late summer calendar. Held during the last weekend of August in the Old Courthouse Square of Eutaw, Alabama, the Festival has a little bit of everything, from blues on Saturday to gospel on Sunday, handmade quilts, baskets and crafts, soul food, skins, fish, homemade ice cream, and a Children’s tent with dancing, drumming, storytelling, face painting. You can watch a video of the Festival featuring blues artist Willie King to get a taste.

If you plan to make the Festival pilgrimage to Eutaw next weekend, I've found a few more Eutaw-specific gems you might enjoy, including a few of the 53 antebellum homes located in Eutaw:

• Alabama's Canebrake region
• Eutaw Antiques
• West Alabama Antiques
• Courthouse Antiques
• Oakmont Bed and Breakfast
• Coleman-Banks House
• Twin Oaks Plantation
• Kirkwood Plantation
• Eutaw is also a musical inspiration-- Old Crow Medicine Show released an album in 2001 named after little ole "Eutaw".
• A Brief History of the Eutaw Rangers in the War with Mexico