Alabama – Towing Silver: Kim Davison's Travels

Sloss Furnaces, Birmingham, Alabama (April 2019)

How do you get back in the mood to travel and explore after several days of grim history of recent and ongoing events? How about a trip to a defunct steel and iron company? The weather was good and I do love exploring, so I headed to Sloss Furnaces, a National Historic Landmark.

You can choose how to approach this post. You can focus on the photos, focus on the text or both.

It operated as a pig iron-producing blast furnace from 1882 to 1971. After closing, it became one of the first industrial sites – and the only blast furnace – in the U.S. to be preserved and restored for public use.

Putting on my geographer’s hat, I asked myself why they would produce pig iron here. It turns out that all the ingredients needed were located nearby – iron ore, coal and limestone, and Colonel James Withers Sloss (C.S.A.) knew it.

Prior to the war, Sloss had become one of the richest men in Alabama, thanks to his plantation and his store in Athens, Alabama. After the war, he became president of the railroad line from Tennessee to Alabama, and convinced them to finish a line of railroad track between Birmingham and Decatur.

Having secured the kind of transportation that made production of iron feasible, he also secured iron ore mines.

They had the location, transportation and raw materials. What else did they need?

That’s right. They needed labor.

Where do you suppose the laborers came from? After all, slavery had been abolished with the enactment of the 13th Amendment in 1865. People now had to be paid for their labor.

Except as a “punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction”

And, oddly enough, Blacks found themselves convicted of random and specious “crimes” and re-enslaved.

Alabama began convict leasing in 1846 and outlawed it in 1928. It was the last state to formally outlaw it. The revenues derived from convict leasing were substantial, accounting for roughly 10% of total state revenues in 1883, surging to nearly 73% by 1898.

It’s hard to go very far “down south” without evidence of horrendous injustices.

When you’re a tourist, it’s easy to identify them.

As you move around, you look at things and ask yourself, “What is that? What happened? Why did it happen? Why here?”

It’s easy to overlook things you see every day back home.

Paying attention is the key.

Asking questions is another key.

Curiosity.

What?

Why?

What could be next?

How do I fit into the picture.

There are lots of important questions.

Sometimes things aren’t what they seem.

What is next?

I headed back to the campground.

It was a verdant respite from a heavy day.

And my sweet little Cora was waiting for me.

Some Family Fun (April 2019)

I usually like to go places I haven’t been before, but when it comes to family, I’ll make an exception. It’s time for a visit with the Davison Family South in Alabama.

I always love seeing my brother Scott and his wife, Lesley. I think their front porch looks so homey! In all the places I’ve lived, I’ve never had a porch – and I still want one!

I get berthed next to their side porch and commence with the family fun.

Man! It’s no fair! They have a front porch, a side porch and a small porch on the back, too!

With all those porches, there’s bound to be a porch cat or two hanging around.

When you’re spending time with family, you just do ordinary stuff. It felt so good to watch Scott work on his truck, with Lesley at his side.

Lesley is an avid gardener.

She gets her grandchildren involved. Here is Gwennie getting ready to plant a potato. She’s showing me the eyes that have sprouted.

Now, Lesley is an excellent cook, as is Scott, but sometimes you just have to go out to eat. Scott took me across the river to Columbus, Georgia to Country’s Barbecue.

Does anyone recognize the building?

They converted an old Greyhound terminal!

It was kind of special to me to eat there, because my Grandmother used to take the bus from Crystal Beach, Ontario to visit us in Kenmore, New York. She’d arrive at the station in downtown Buffalo and then catch the NFTA bus out to us. She said that she’d take me to eat at the automat in the bus station, but we never got around to it. I wonder if they still have automats?

Anyway, I digress. Here we are, at Country’s Barbecue.

Sharp-eyed readers might recognize the trailer that the sign is on. Yep! It’s an Airstream!

We go inside and order. I love all the art deco details.

You can eat inside, but we opted to eat in the bus.

While we were waiting for our meals, we got to do a little pretend bus driving.

Get a load of the size of the steering wheel!

This is my lunch – according to my notes, it’s a chopped sandwich. I learned something about barbecue during this meal. You are supposed to add sauce to your food.

Duh! I could never figure out why people were so excited about barbecue. This northern girl is partial to her hamburgers, with ketchup, mustard and onions. To me, barbecue just seemed like a bunch on meat on a bun. But, put the sauce on it and it gets much tastier!

Scott opted for the ribs, fries and butter beans with iced tea.

Of course, we did some shopping during my visit.

I prefer things that are free, but “dirt cheap” is the next best thing.

Hey! We could have used these S’mores at the Historicorps campsite!

One day, I was out tooling around. I spied this large cow up on a hill looking down on the major thoroughfare. Of course I had to check it out.

I was curious as to why there would be a cow in front of a Best Buy.

It made “udderly” no sense to me.

When I got back, I asked and Lesley told me (if I remember correctly) that there used to be a dairy store at that location and the cow was a local landmark.

My visit coincided with Easter, so we all went to church. Scott and Lesley, their children and grandchildren and maybe some in-laws, too were all there. This wasn’t Scott and Lesley’s usual church. Someone else in the family picked it out.

You know how I usually gripe about organ music? There was nary an organ to be seen. It was the most unusual church I’d ever been to. I snapped this photo while we were waiting for everyone to arrive. The screens in the front kept scrolling messages. Judging by the darkness of the interior, it kind of looks like this might have been the Easter vigil.

No, it was at 9:30 in the morning.

Two-foot long light sticks that change colors when you shake them were distributed. A rock band played. There were dancers. There was a lot of energy. I never really considered myself terribly traditional, but the experience seemed more like what I imagine a rave would be than a church service.

But, hey, it was something different. When in Rome…

Wait a minute, I’m sure this was nothing like Easter in Rome.

After church, we headed back to one of the kid’s places for Easter dinner. There was food galore! I got a photo of me with Scott and Lesley while I had someone there to take it.

The next day, it was time to roll on.

Thanks to Scott and Lesley for the hospitality!

Sweet Home, Alabama!

My next stop was Phenix City, Alabama, and the driveway camping at the house of my brother Scott and his wife, Lesley.

And another sticker on the map!

It was so wonderful to see Scott. We’re a couple of Kenmorons!

It was great to be “home” for a while. The weather was a much improved – a big change from the weeks of rain I had been experiencing.

And even though I was camping in the city, we had some wonderful sunsets. We sure do live in a beautiful world.

I had hit about every point of interest in the area in previous visits, so this time, I just kind of kicked back and enjoyed life as it came.

Lesley is quite the gardener, and always ready to try something new. This time around, she was trying her hand at growing loofahs. Did you know that they were gourds? I didn’t.

But gourds they are, and when they are dry enough, you need to peel them and take out the seeds.

This is a first attempt for her, so we weren’t sure what to expect. After we peeled them, we set them to dry.

Lesley actually used them for cleaning and they worked just fine.

I took advantage of the good weather to do a little cleaning of my own. When I was attending to the moisture inside the trailer’s windows, I noticed that leaves and pine needles had gotten behind the pebble guards. I figured out how to open them and set to cleaning. Notice the toothbrush. What attention to detail!

We spent some time working on renovating one of their houses. They’ve done a lot of work on this house, just a few things left to go. It has the most delightful screened porch!

When Lesley wasn’t scraping and painting or peeling loofahs, she was cooking.

She’s a great cook. I think this was smothered chicken and rice.

One day, we went across the river to Columbus, Georgia to a food truck event. Crowds. I don’t care for crowds very much. I ordered at the first food truck that didn’t have a line.