I hate driving home at that stretch of time when the sun is so low that flipping that vizor thing down doesn’t help. There is not much else to say about this day other than that I worked a lot…
Auntie and Grandpa Going to Florida – Day 11
Friday starts with biscuits and gravy. The continental breakfast at this Best Western easily wins the best breakfast award of our trip. Not only are the biscuits and gravy just great, the menu includes grits, oatmeal, dry cereal, a large mixed fruit bowl, pastries, bagels, coffee, and orange juice. The staples are just that, but the biscuits and gravy will live on at some mythical level of a quality unseen from a franchise hotel.
Based on the roads taken Thursday, I altered our itinerary to take in some smaller roads, which I hope will be more rural and a lot slower than the main artery I had originally chosen. Before our deviation, we passed cotton, the crop that, along with tobacco, defined the South for many troubled years. Cotton shouldn’t be dismissed as some pretty fluffy-looking fibers that somehow become a large part of our clothes. Back in 1840, cotton exports represented 67% of our export economy, and the British were the largest buyers of our slave-produced product, which was making slave owners rich. Wealth and the desire for what it buys have always been a powerful factor in how one person exploits another, with only the obvious negative nature of this ugly transaction being camouflaged in order to keep it alive right up to today.
The lady at the desk of our hotel, on hearing about my plans to take us through Enterprise and then Opp, before pointing the car north for the drive to Montgomery, recommended we take the Montgomery highway, which would be much faster. I explained we were intentionally looking for slower scenic roads. She insisted that the roads we will be driving are not scenic as she has driven them many a time and are not what she would call scenic rural roads.
They are the roads of rural poverty where lack of education and inequality regarding resources are measured out in such ways to ensure those caught in the trap of being born to the wrong geography and race will continue maintaining their position in society. Far too many people in this region of our country are trapped, which is right where those who despise them would like to keep them short of deporting them to Africa.
Boy, was she wrong? Leaving the 84, where we spotted the cotton, and getting on the 92 East, we are traveling the nondescript little two-lane side roads I live for. More abandoned homes, a house with a boat docked in the front yard ready to be dragged over to the Choctawhatchee River for some fishing. Farms are interspersed between patches of forest and rolling hills. The red clay soil of Alabama is churned over in a number of fields by local farmers prepping their land for spring planting; maybe it’s already been seeded.
My feelings for Alabama are warming as I witness the intrinsic beauty the state embodies and what must have been the draw for early settlers. Plenty of water graces Alabama, and the rich red earth must deliver an adequate abundance based on the number of working farms I see around here. At the same time, there is also great poverty and much neglect, so any assumptions on my part will require further scrutiny.
The 167 bypasses Enterprise and delivers us to the 134 East towards Opp. The characteristic wetlands of the region are a romantic attraction, at least during springtime. I get lost in their reflections. Looking into their dark waters with trees ringing the water’s edge and, at times, growing from the middle of the depths of the waters has me on the constant lookout for places to pull over in case I spot a particularly spectacular example.
All the while, I have to remain vigilant in the memories of what has occurred on these lands and the horror of those dragged out of a continent a world away to be thrown into a kind of labor that would have been as alien to them as any modern-day person being sucked up off the earth and brought to a planet light-years away and forced to clean the anuses of Martians.
Crushed dreams and broken families litter the history here and cannot and should never be overlooked. Not until white America reconciles its still remaining racist tendencies and begins the work of true integration should we be let off the hook for our ancestors’ injustices.
Lonely and near-empty houses, once homes to people who don’t leave photos of better times behind, are scattered along the highway. Some appear to be older dwellings, discarded from use after the current property owner built newer digs. Along the way, we left the 134 to take the 189 North until we branched off to the 141 and finally onto the 9/29/331 – yes, all three roads on the same stretch of highway.
Are we lucky to be here in springtime instead of the summer and fall when the mosquitos may have negatively impacted my perceptions? Right now, though, I am taken in. No matter if the waters are brown, black, or have a green surface, are large, small, running, or standing still, they all are delights to my eyes.
Windows to the past are discarded as inconvenient reminders that what was happening here at one time should not be seen again. I can’t help but filter this part of our journey with eyes that try to peer deeper into what is just below the surface and wonder if it might be kindling yet to catch fire.
On one side of the road, a small rural grocery appears to be thriving, while just down the street is a nothingness intersection where the local gas station/convenience store has recently closed. The store appears to have shut abruptly. Maybe a death or serious injury in the family forced the owner’s hand, or maybe poor management brought foreclosure? We casual travelers will likely never know.
The town of Brantley pops up out of nowhere and is a small gift to travelers. Two old washing machines from my aunt’s youth first caught our attention. Rusting, inoperative, and growing plants from their tubs, the nostalgia they imbue has Aunty fawning over her memories of having used washers just like them years ago.
At first glance, the town seems to have dried up with its dust being sent by the wind, but that is only at first sight. While a lot of the shops are in need of either tenants or paint, just north of downtown are some wonderful, well-kept old homes. A large school is still open, and my curiosity to know more about Brantley will only be satisfied on a future visit.
Between these small towns are more farms and more wetlands. Old relics of business, now shells, dot the crumbling sidewalks, and we sit back and watch farms and forests pass by our windows. The weather earlier had given me some concern that we were in for nastiness, but after about 25 miles of driving north, the storm broke up, and we were under sunny skies as we approached Montgomery.
I expected more on the way to Montgomery. I am not sure what it was I thought I’d find. Maybe I was looking for abject poverty or old homes with folks sitting out front on the patio watching life go by. I could also have been thinking there had been a renaissance around this celebrated area and that, along with monuments, would stand new homes and businesses that would demonstrate the vibrancy of the black and the white populations seeking better lives.
Instead, things seem to look much the way they likely always have. I am curious to see downtown Montgomery, but time constraints are playing a role. I’ll have to wait for a return in the future, but for now, I’ll take Highway 80 to Selma as a compromise. We are about to follow the path of the civil rights march that occurred along this route back in the 1960s.
We are greeted by a commemorative sign identifying the events which took place here. The road itself is now a four-lane highway that is rather nondescript. To me, it appears that this area has been sterilized. Maybe there were old homes or shops, gas stations, or signs of the camps along the way; today, there is asphalt.
A sign here or there identifies where the encampments were. Promises of future memorials on long-forgotten placards fade sun-baked from the years of neglect. Coming into Selma from the east, we get our first taste of the type of poverty that has been ever-present for too many people of African-American descent. This is indicative of not just the population here but can be found across the country.
Selma is just another microcosm of life in the U.S. for black Americans. One side or the other, south or west, on the outside of town, or hidden away off a secondary road, a community of ramshackle dwellings identifies the have-nots where education and opportunity have played secondary roles to the need for survival.
On the way to Selma, I take inventory of what I have watched and listened to over the course of my life so far, trying to see how things have changed for the black population in America. I knew most of the answer, but this trip across the U.S., my third in the past four years, confirms my first-hand experience that not much if anything, has improved; on the contrary, things seem tenser.
Our first stop is at the Downtowner Restaurant which Caroline found us moments before, while she sits patiently in Phoenix trying to help with my incessant phone calls for her to be my connection to the internet. She found us a winner today. Lunch for the three of us was some fantastic catfish served with three sides and a hushpuppy. Just like other home-style cooking places I’ve been to, certain items run out, and you have to choose from what’s left. In this case, Auntie had the last portion of catfish, and the next customer was forced to order something other than his first wish.
The layout of downtown Selma is classic Americana. The main buildings are old, well-maintained, and beautiful to look at, requiring a return visit so that Caroline and I can casually visit and view these historic structures and facades in greater detail. Ornate churches ring the city. Large homes stand gracefully as their present owners take great pride in preserving their heritage. These elegant timepieces have become showpieces, law offices, bed and breakfasts, and private homes.
The Live Oak Cemetery is a pre-civil war treasure that Auntie could have stayed at for the rest of the day. We read some birth and death dates, admire the ornate grave markers, and read a few of the historic postings before moving on.
Leaving Selma, the road returns to what came before on our journey. Pockets of decay between scenes of splendor. It is impossible for trees, lakes, creeks, and meadows to look broken down and sloppy, but quite easy for neglected man-made artifices that lie rotting. These time capsules dot the entire country, though, in some places, they are more common than others.
On the one hand, some buildings are simply eyesores, while others lend an aesthetic to the rustic look and feel of the environment. Some gas stations age gracefully and harken to a moment in history that feels romantic, while another more modern closed station portrays urban blight. Homes that may have been savable a few years before quickly succumb to the forces of nature once a chink in the armor can be exploited.
Once a roof starts to collapse, it won’t be long before the floors rot. An open door or broken window invites animals to take refuge. If the opening is small, first, the insects and birds make the old home their new home. When the house has been sealed up well, it is likely a transient made the place their own for a while. A lone mattress, a few scattered clothes, and empty liquor bottles are usually good indicators that after the owners left, a squatter took over.
We leave the “Welcome to Alabama” sign behind and must be crossing into Mississippi, but the welcome sign is nowhere to be found; not even a little placard at this crossing is seen. The sun is going down in this corner of a Mississippi forest, and another crossroads brings us to more forgotten and neglected buildings. Night approaches, and for a short while, we drive in the dark on our way to Carthage, Mississippi.
Our motel is the Economy Inn on the north end of town, off Red Water Road if I am not mistaken, this should be the town of Red Water, but the listing for the motel online said the place was in Carthage. This was found in my bathroom; just kidding.
Closing thoughts on racism. I have seen this cancer that plagues our country firsthand. Not necessarily as it happens to a recipient of its vitriol but from other Caucasians who believe I’m part of their club of hate. This has happened on dozens of occasions over the past 30 years of my life. What was new about this trip was how much more open and angry it has become over the past four years. People talking within earshot use racial terms of hatred without concern about who might be hearing them.
A young black woman in Louisiana related how children 3 and 4 years old talk about “them niggers over there” when in stores and parks. An older black gentleman told me of the black side and the white side of town. I’ve had a hotel receptionist offer me a room up front away from the “woolly boogers.”
In Mississippi, off a side road is what appears to be a small town with two churches and small houses packed tightly next to one another. The only problem is that this place had no sign identifying this as a township, village, or small town, and nothing on the map either. There were no street signs or mailboxes. All of the residents as far as I could see, were black. This got me wondering if this was more common than I might imagine. Are there pockets of impoverished African Americans who have clumped together in unincorporated areas, staying off the radar screen and not part of any community?
Civil rights have surely improved things since those fateful days along these roads of racism years ago, but in reality, the white population has sold themselves a new and improved brand of Caucasians that is bigger and better than ever since we removed those harmful overt signs of racism and intolerance from the recipe that creates ugly souls. The truth is we just rebranded the same old product and called it new; it’s still what it is, full of hate and bigotry but with a much nicer face that appears too thin to hide the truth.
It’s not just the south either; it’s there in Montana as big as the sky. Idaho’s potato crop pales in comparison to the size of its prejudice. New York doesn’t escape either; just check out upstate. Chicago? Don’t be caught on the wrong side of town. Iowa? I don’t believe there are but 3 African Americans in the entire state.
Selma was a truly beautiful city in spite of the poverty on its edges, but still, I could easily imagine there is more than a handful of people there who feel that a new walk to Montgomery is in order.
Caroline Eats Pani Puri
Today’s the day (or, rather, night) to savor last night’s work. I joined friends for pani puri night at Rinku’s house. You can see the dish with the green pani in the foreground. I bet John is a bit jealous that he couldn’t join us.
Auntie and Grandpa Going to Florida – Day 10
Thursday brings new life and new fun. The sun is shining after some lingering clouds gave way during the early morning. Our first stop is to catch a long-distance glimpse of the Space Shuttle Hangar out on Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Center. Nobody other than myself has any real interest in walking around this corner of history and so we continue our drive north.
Merritt National Wildlife Refuge is the next place of interest, so we stop. This is home to a diverse collection of plants, birds, alligators, and insects, populating the many waterways and probably a lot of other stuff we can’t see. Blue herons and egrets are the most abundant birds we readily see. A couple of cormorants sun themselves while other smaller birds flitter by.
Over in the grass, a small alligator, or maybe it’s a big lizard, a very large lizard. The gator is about 4 or 5 feet long and poses while we gawk. This gator will be the only one we see today, which is unfortunate as Auntie was hoping to see a capital specimen.
Crawling along at five mph, we see more birds, admire the thistles, and get lost in the ripples of water scattering sunlight across its surface. The road through the refuge is a short one with just a few interpretive signs along the way.
We passed a manatee viewing area, but from previous experience, I have learned that these sea cows need more heat than the frigid winter waters can deliver. The manatees go inland to find those warmer waters. What we don’t pass is a gas station for replenishing our water supply and Grandpa relieving his own. Time to go find some of the essentials for continued comfortable travels.
On the main road again we pass a few boat launch areas and quickly are at the end of this road and joining another where we find a gas station.
Leaving the gas station, a guy on a bicycle sits waiting for us to pass. A Vietnam Veteran with strong feelings for Jesus, he is Mr. Tougher T. Woodpeckerlips, T stands for Than. Not being able to pass this sight up, I ask to take a photo, which he obliges.
He asks where we are from; we ask him the same. He offers up some excellent information about the forest here with panthers and other wildlife that can be seen in the wild. Sadly, we are short on time and have to leave, but not before he tells us how he rows, standing up on his 16-foot flat-bottom fishing boat, rides his bike everywhere, and was recently hit by a car from which he is still recovering. It was after the list of battles that he adopted the description of being “tougher than woodpecker lips.”
That’s it, we are as northeast as this trip takes us. I point the car west, and we are now truly on our way home. Luck shines like the sun today. Not far down the road, we spot a man selling boiled peanuts. I have been looking for fresh boiled peanuts for more than a thousand miles now and need to stop.
I wanted the real thing and not some plastic-wrapped, made yesterday, boiled peanuts that are some garden variety, boring kind. I had to have the cooking-on-the-side-of-the-road, out-of-a-pickup-truck-trailer variety. Better yet, they need to be served up by someone out of Dukes of Hazard, and that’s what I got. Cajun-flavored boiled peanuts served up by the bearded old man sitting with his dog on the roadside, waiting for probably anyone but us Yankees.
The back roads of Florida and America, in general, are only back roads to us city dwellers. These roads are not freeways; hence, they must be back roads, is what one would say. In reality, though, they are major thoroughfares connecting small towns to larger ones. Even smaller than these are the roads that cross communities, and then you finally reach the real back roads. These back roads are typically dirt, though quite often, you’ll find them paved. However, it can happen that these roads were last paved 50 or more years ago, and much of their edges are crumbling into the dirt.
So, although I call this trip a back road tour of the South, it is much more accurately described as getting as far off the freeway as possible while still maintaining all the creature comforts that support my traveling companions.
We are out far enough, though, that the character of the land comes shining through. On the freeways, much of America looks the same. The trees may be different, the hills might roll higher or lower, and fields of various crops can line the road, but the generic franchised icons of civilization repeat over and over again as though America’s four million miles of roads were one long homogeneous continuity of the same gas stations, fast food restaurants, hotels, and various other services.
Out on the back roads you have the chance to randomly stop here or there. You can look at the things that lend character to a place. Check out a dilapidated cabin that might be the fifth one of these you have seen, but each will have an absolute uniqueness to it. Rail bridges, small streams, and driving along tree-lined roads all share a beauty and intimacy out here that it doesn’t matter if you have seen one or a hundred; their shape, color, height, smell, and other characteristics are all different.
It is the back roads where you find great boiled peanuts and rusting relics of an age that has been left behind. Generally, the pace is slower out here, but you still will find the impatient fool on your bumper as you move like a sloth crawling along particularly scenic stretches of road. The longer I am out here, the more enamored I find myself with the characters, landscape, and ruin.
Give me a broken-down hotel sign that hasn’t attracted a patron in decades to a McDonald’s any day of the week. There are still waters reflecting trees, flowers, sky, and grasses. Roadside attractions don’t have to be the world’s largest ball of twine; I find the chipped paint next to a rusting door handle to hold stories of the last occupants, while even a burned roadside tells you of those less careless and appreciative of what the world around them is to those like me.
I drive these American roads in search of our country. I look for markers from our past so I might glimpse our future, which is very much like the cycle of life: a place is born, and it dies, either from neglect, abandonment, or decrepitude. Our natural world and its biotas recede from the weight of man’s heavy hand; my journey into its domain allows me to witness what increasingly feels to be a rare sight.
Through it all, I love our country even more. The more you can appreciate all the elements, from the anthills, moss, broken windows, fences needing mending, lonely farm animals in the rain, to thistles, thorns, bugs, roadkill skunks, early closing hours, toothless merchants, and even a policeman hiding around the corner, the more you arrive at a near-constant state of wonderment.
Florida gives way to Georgia late in the afternoon. Our trek across Georgia will be a short one, with our destination being Alabama. The first town we pass through is Valdosta, as opposed to the three small communities we passed on road number 41. Places with a few homes, a lot of farms, and maybe an equipment shop are hard to call towns; they are more like communities in my eyes.
Valdosta is one of those small towns you wished someone had told you about earlier in life. It is one of the places you add to your list of returns, such as North Hero, Vermont, Apalachicola, Florida, Monterey, California, Ruidoso, or New Mexico. All too frequently, cities across America have given away any hope for maintaining their historical integrity. The old is bulldozed for the new, and soon, a clone city with Circuit City, Office Max, Red Lobster, Walmart, and Dollar Stores has taken over.
In Valdosta, at least from the view offered to these travelers entering the city from the south, this place packs in the small-town charm. Main Street is vibrant, with as much traffic as there are stores open, and it appears that all the shops have tenants. Awnings hang over sidewalks that have park benches for resting your feet before making your way through this shopping district. The alleys are as clean as the sidewalks; this place couldn’t be more inviting.
We are just passing through. Auntie and Grandpa are sightseeing; I’m scouting a future road trip for Caroline and me. On the way out of town, we pass a Carnegie Library, the first I have consciously seen, although I’m certain I must have passed hundreds over the years. Not much further down the road, and we enter Quitman.
This is becoming a trend, Georgia is a downright all-around beautiful state with gorgeous cities. Brunswick, in the southeast, was the first city in Georgia that Caroline and I visited a couple of years ago, quickly followed by Savannah, both of which we were enamored with, while today it is Valdosta and Quitman.
Again, Main Street sets the tempo with two-story brick-built structures lining a divided road marking the downtown area. On either end of the main street are the churches; Baptist, Methodist, and Episcopal are the dominant beliefs. Branching off of downtown are southern-style and Victorian-style homes that these small communities have so far been able to maintain.
Well-kept yards, multi-colored azaleas, Spanish-moss-draped trees lining small streets, a gazebo, and a local cemetery give the eyes and senses plenty to take in as you begin to realize you are falling in love and start to wonder how you could move into a town like this?
Whigham down the road, on the other hand, shows you firsthand how most of these small towns cannot hold on. The shops are closed, boarded up, broken into, falling apart, and falling down. The homes are no longer well kept, and age will take its toll to ensure that without revitalization, the town will someday become but a memory.
Before crossing into Alabama, we pass through Donalsonville. This town is in the middle of becoming a has-been and reflects what Quitman worked to save. The shops, for the most part, are still open. They are rough around the edges, wear and tear, and the passing of years are hurting the charm they once held. The main road skirts the old town so many a visitor will never see this little corner, further depressing its chances of rediscovering its glory days. Tourism amongst these types of small towns would be a lifesaver, but little to no money exists to help rescue them. So, these towns will gradually disappear, and we all lose a great part of America because of it.
It’s near dark crossing the border, and not a long drive to the hotel. It is apparent that Dothan is a larger city than the three of us had imagined. Caroline helped guide us to our lodging via long-distance help.
Seeing the hotel, I spot a billboard for Pofolk’s, which, while still active here in the south, has disappeared out west. Grandpa and I make the short drive around the corner to sit down for some dinner and pick up Auntie something to go as she stayed in the room.
Caroline gets Cooking
Can you tell who I was thinking of when I prepared the pani for tomorrow’s pani puri night (little hint)?
Well, the cooking really starts tomorrow, but for a while, I was sweating in the kitchen, blending mint and cilantro with jalapenos and spices to create the dipping sauce (pani) for tomorrow’s feast. John will probably post a recipe and a better description of this delicious Indian dish at some later time. Meanwhile, thank you, John, for providing support and advice lovingly over the phone while I was worrying over every detail. Wish you were home!
Auntie and Grandpa Going to Florida – Day 9
Wednesday turns out to be a rather dull day. We started on a good footing with breakfast with the Densfords. By the time we dropped them off back home, it was raining. From here, we began our push more or less back to Phoenix. On the 70 East, it rains, it rains in Arcadia, and it’s raining in Okeechobee. Rain comes down at Fort Pierce on the Atlantic Ocean. Going north in the rain, it continues to rain. When we arrive at the hotel, it’s raining. Delivering dinner to Auntie and Grandpa, it was raining. What a wet, dull day.
To be clear about the quality of this dullness, I blame it on the low, heavy gray skies pouring rain down upon us. The rain had the effect of moving our moods in the wrong direction, but maybe it was also the fact that all of the important stuff is now done. The environment itself added to my own negativity as I was looking at the horrific urban sprawl of McMansions taking over forest land being turned into pseudo farmland for the sake of people’s egos to have it all. The Tampa/St. Petersburg / Bradenton / Sarasota Megalopolis is growing into the ‘boring’ flat nothingness lands that exist between the other cities and this corner of Florida.
Passing through Arcadia, a note was made to revisit this small town; it is still authentically small and not modernized by branded commercialism. As for the eastern seaboard here on the Atlantic, what a waste of time this coast is. Everything is privately owned; thanks to California for showing us how the coast should be available to all. Million-dollar luxury beachfront hurricane targets and view obstructions line up like row housing in any urban setting from a big city across America.
There is no ocean to see, no beach to walk, only private signs warning you to keep out. Mile after mile of inhospitable homes acts as a private gate to bar Joe Citizen from the Atlantic Ocean. So, if you are one of the ten million Americans who belong to the club of isolation, then you will probably enjoy your stay here in Snoberita-Ville.
As for our tour of Cape Canaveral that was to take place in the afternoon, the rain slowed us down so much that we were quite late. Even so, with so much rain, I didn’t feel we would get our money’s worth scooting between facilities while Auntie and Grandpa got colder and wetter.
So you see, if it hadn’t been raining cats and dogs and city planners hadn’t allowed the building of forest-destroying super homes with impenetrable iron walls blocking the view of the entire ocean, then things might have been hunky-dory and I wouldn’t have had a dull day.
Comfort food to the rescue, as there’s nothing like eating BBQ to soothe the soul. Tomorrow will surely be better.