The Alabama Experience; Vineboy

the and a landman campbell planning mobile routes to be said in a development oh yeah i like that you know part of that dream is the lord and it's worth whatever it is the tools of the trade as he practices at a lawn chair jug of water a pad and pencil a transplant a northerner he came here in nineteen seventy nine became

fascinated with everything that makes alabama alabama now three times a week in the birmingham post herald columnist which mendelson writes about life liberty and the pursuit of the perfect place to work that lawn chair he isn't always a cheerleader to castigate cynical politicians frantic pace of modern life but it's reckless lives in suburban sprawl but it's friday column in the newspapers magazine kudzu has always been a celebration the idea came for a decade ago yourself lakeshore drive and shades cregan homework that's where we met him and i was walking down some people are doing my evening was an old a citizen of plotting law is listening to

brahms violin concerto on the wall in the summer of nineteen eighty two have been burning him about three years are always sees with an idea for all that is the first journalist to receive that i was discovering in this place a wonderful quality of life terribly clumsy and and and and focus on the phrase that that's really what it was was the quality of that oh terrific voice here i was discovering having come from supposedly more sophisticated places i was covering wonderful place to alanna do some kind of feature some kind of regular fine in the paper that said folks this is a terrific voice what's appreciate it they're called dog days because sirius the dog star rises and sets with the sun between mid july and

september that's when my dictionary says i said a call dog days because it's so hot and disgusting outside that all any self respecting dog walker who wanted to and we should be swiftly and very cool points preferably one with a constant worries and lots of shoppers to choose dogs are smarter than people dogs park under shade trees or porches or directly in front of an air conditioner that people go on vacation in places like south florida stand in line for hours in places like disney right frankly what a lot of people think is a vacation i think his insane disney world in orlando for example hosts signs advising people of how long they must wait in line ryan and she sometimes the line is an hour more for ninety second ride i read about restaurants down there by the people that's cool drinks we will get sunburned and the cadre while waiting in line to get into the restaurant the cost one day mission is thirty one both

west texas or they ask the family for use four hundred dollars and that's before the first dollop of lod ran medicare on about the absurdities of pop culture stuff i do for recreation or most people will say as the french to travel means you say people i think they sat still offering so what seven easy breezy adventure that will take us to one of the sweetest voices i know we're going to the north end of little river canyon on the charity kept and lime pie that allegedly like a plan on stopping along the way bring towels is one where perhaps launch here in a book also a camp today's trip we were approached to kenya from the east room center and cedar bluffs on us for eleven three miles pathways bird road splits will but that's the

plant's the chestnut junior grade and stay on what is now because for lebanon to the center of the center funny thing about these business routes they're the ones that going to downtowns worldliness and congestion is supposed to be most of the biggest cuts suck that i do the bypass that was supposed to bypass the congested bit as aerie as a moral there somewhere but if you think about it too long will miss all of center population twenty three hundred seat of cherokee county the sandwiches burgers and local gossip are available to change a diner in downtown cedar bluff they have an all you can eat cat fish fry on friday and saturday nights or you can pick up a picnic at the piggly wiggly as you continue on alabama's sixty eight after another five miles of like country will come to the farm village of gales now will turn north left on alabama thirty five toward for playing for about eleven miles drive across the grain of the life rolling farmland hayfields mountainsides real heartland stuff road winds

and twice over really then just before the great classical river berlin and walk down the stone steps to the rock flat any rate as the same goes you have arrived the panorama that opens the forests as one of the most breathtaking in the state where the head of an enormous four fifth drops off of one side a large area perhaps three acres of rocky flats perches above the goal and every season even everyday water patterns on the rock flat different i've seen a spot as it is now during the dryness of mid august with a small channel of water flowing little pools and dropping over the agent of the bs and i've seen it during wet seasons water re supply and funders that occur before always different always beautiful always a place that beckons to me in my imagination

this is public land it was made for you and me as the song says but it offers no protection for major human stupidity in other words no fences lifeguards safety warnings comfort stations snack bars and so it's just layer without any parking lot to the highway accidents yours to enjoy it for free before they fast food family for his suv off so be careful though later treated nicely and pray that nobody comes along with a bright idea turned into three routes will bring us back to birmingham back the way we came down alabama thirty five to fort payne and us eleven or are fifty nine or left at the end of the graveyard alabama won seventy six the scenic route along west women can you know alabama sixty eight than west the us eleven and fifty nine in college however you go whatever you do it can even be sure to talk a little bit of the scenery

into your imagination to pull out when summer in the city and the song said where you been but if individually wrapped carriers is actually much more than that paul unfortunately in this day and the way most people get anywhere is by rather dispiriting means either by flying which is a form of purgatory as a star like all or by driving on interstate switch witching words on interstates as i've as of right now are kind of a tube are that are that contain a world apart from anywhere else in in the united states or even in the world and i find that a very empty without sufficient shown often get their all body it gives you nothing sonnett said that this ordinary little village ten miles west of auburn is

the kudzu capital of the world so while travelling one day for mobile i can attest kiki in search of other things i drove a few miles out of my way to have a look of anger there might be common might be a banner over alabama fourteen proclaiming the cubs in the world and perhaps a gift shop horrible and photogenic proprietor selling kudzu seedlings as if the world needs kudzu ceiling kudzu flavored taffy and kudzu vine placements wrong guess i drove all over town and salt nary a leaf of the stuff i did see a population about three hundred fifty stretch along a two mile piece of alabama forty on the western end of week outage a few pecan orchards peach trees a railroad track with a little swath of a park adjacent where wanted one is so inclined they picnic at a public table under a public oak tree there to hear the birds twitter and the researchers call in short it was

what you might call a pleasant little remarkable piece of these talibans settlement fertile for didn't quiet but for the odd freight train rode traveler bird call and the clatter of a teenager's call outside the grocery alas no cuts to capital no story they're doubling let's hit the road for dusty and then i saw the church when you travel the country roads so you see a lot of country churches if they were built more than fifty years ago they usually have some small batch of ornamentation such as fish they'll shingles are rustic at brick work the graceful they'll usually predictably an ordinary so that's why this church made me say whoa their job and i look critically buildings for part of my living and i've never seen a better piece of work and a slow to poker united methodist church

it was but seven years ago for sixty five thousand dollars there are big city churches that probably spent sixty five thousand dollars on light sockets and sink faucets yet it makes is bold architectural statement as the grandest cathedral architect nickols g davis simple a line sanctuary design an anti european style courtyard to the entrance then he put an octagonal windows and repeated the octagonal shape in the courtyard and interior details dating back to early christian a byzantine designs the octagon of circle symbolizes family unit employees of a conventional steeple directed a narrow window rising sharply from the pitched roof that sheds light on the altar and the crowning touch was that he plotted the angle of the sun and found that between eleven am and noon the sun comes in the steeple window and lights up the huge cross the field the result was a bowling modern billing at one that resonates with traditional forms of

phoenix it is highly visible on its site but the wood planning keeps it modest and the steeple rises only to treetop level those combinations of strong presence in modesty and modernism using traditional elements are some of the toughest challenges to architects in addition to winning a bunch of awards for the design davis pointed out that good designs are not only found in cities and all have to involve monumental and costly buildings and country churches don't have to be boring boxes sorry no kudzu kept low to poker but this church was a more precious discovery is what every church should be inviting comforting protective inspiring attractive expressive and doing on now to trust he will come back some sabbath morning when the sun shines through the steeple window and illuminates trends people loved trains on but still the romance of the rails

thought even amtrak lousy equipment never on time sell them on bad service all it seems to take forever yearning we won't go people love that they just love a train experience it too i think it's certainly the most of live with drought we were just fascinated by trains and i think rightly so i can lecture at some length but i'll spare you on how america through public policy through our railroads to go right down into the enter the privy vault or whatever we have left in the way of railroads life is full surprises surprise of the moment a pleasant one is amtrak's gulf breeze still running that's a surprise to me because when amtrak inaugurated service nearly two years ago i was delighted to get

one thing albanians a car leventhal for another few people would voluntarily spend two and half hours to get from birmingham to montgomery for seven hours to get them will be only be driven in ninety minutes for half hours respect and for another the service depends on a grant from the state of alabama and we all know what the state's finances have been like lately so either the gulf breeze a passenger train between birmingham and montgomery green will evergreen group matt moore and damon it was a nice dollar that would hunt but next month will make two years that this three car train has been the fire up and down the old ellen and remember that call it the little train that can least might be able to gulf breeze technically amtrak train number five nineteen and five point is actually an extension of the amtrak press nineteen forty

bike train runs daily between new york city and warmth the southbound crescent with burnham it drops one locomotive two coaches club for these become the gulf breeze which then to lose than moby on return trip the breeze comes north of birmingham and hooks up with the northbound present and continues on to new york servers now it's much the same as it was when we started operating middle age coaches and once someone more modern car would serve snacks sandwiches and things that amtrak has improved the time it now takes just under two hours to get to montgomery and five hours and forty five minutes to reach more real according to the timetable i agree with the writer who said an amtrak timetable is nothing more than a helpful suggestions trains are subject to break down these great crossing collisions bad weather and other physical or metaphysical persons

sometimes i think that if it rains in botswana and veterans like which it was one day this week one of pop agrees to munch on a southbound crescent told in a tall thirty five pm on a mere fifteen minutes late after all the un canceling a break testing and was offered trees moved out of twelve fifty six forty one minutes behind skip but while fifty seven even before the train clear the platform on mars at downtown i had moved from my coach seat and was installed in the club which is minute train shuttered and platters of the switches it remained csx transportation amtrak west fourteenth street it was a pleasant tone of a train rolled past the city jail this new races get jenin as far as some russian street giant bright sunlight short break contracts cut through the leaner now

it's from which includes the lumber mills the alabama power generating station in shelby county over the intersection nowadays railroads pass along the back side of the thing ms binns so so it's fresh after stretcher lot of land near the alabama river across the river then through freight yards into downtown where the train stops a marvelous keith sits at the edge of the month memories lovely riverfront park near the foot of low montgomery amtrak station has been built into the grain silos it's neat

i disembarked on an amtrak train at three bn forty seven minutes behind schedule and watched the little train trundle down the heat haze for export greenville and points south and it was refreshing to just long enough to remind me of the delights of train travel the south has always been the most fascinating region of the country whether it's making calling it the sahara of the bows are thought to the various vs made paul's up a turn in the south and sort of various traveling books about the south the south has always been especially inflation will forte playing in the in her first book the southern ladies and gentleman said that that you could put up well chain link fence around the south i i wouldn't share that view i would say

people at the festival of the world's largest and most powerful theme park but the sun has always have foreigners to come and pronounce up on it and in fact and not to sell enough to borrow more but i think that some of the best commentators about the south are not native recalls when you're a native you see things and they become much more familiar although i wonder the law if that kind of journalism that i do requires exploration the day began with one of those good to be alive september mornings the air was clear cool and fresh some of the promise of all at h parker high school in the smithfield neighborhood of tough streets birmingham the day began with a shooting in the park on a rescue squad an ambulance and the police were summoned dress arrived at its usual fashion

a rescue squad and if you will and presswood tell a million people if they cared to listen as parker has all a great metropolis would know about parker has who was a kid gets shot in a park at a different story tell about that morning of parker high school us all morning full of promise and optimism of human effort in almost achievement in the parker high school classroom of very old andersen anderson offers disciplined children who live without rules he offers direction to children who haven't won he offered motivation to children without a strong sense of purpose he offer self esteem or really worthwhile if you tried to get sue anderson is and how he achieves all the stuff you might think he's a football coach and i admit that some of the same values anderson teaches

good come from a coach discipline motivation sense of purpose so forth but these kids are knocking heads they're using their minds and voices become the andersons room to say for twenty three years gary anderson has been the choral director of parker high school in this room apart from the distraction of their daily lives these children come to learn mozart in hiding brahms and laugh and they come to be part of something important for every school has choir practice but these kids say not because they're underprivileged also alarmed because their surroundings a corporation work against what anderson is trying to instill standing up straight does not come naturally to acute and has never been told to stand up straight and get to know what the bosses of have to keep all of that and as a kid you have these

expanded will have trouble below that we enunciate in an articulation are not taught on black the basketball courts for a lot of a cushion the laws are not commonly heard words you can bet your lunch there's a whole lot of stand ups plane enunciated in articulating talk about defiance in anderson's rehearsal he is constantly cajoling the coaching reminding really a distressing consonants push involves he's always always in charge and as is for five classes each day plus rehearsal before sunrise every day and every two hours after school and so there really is no miracle here is just hard work day after day year after year inspiring kids with a little inspiration to give their best guess one hundred seventy five students and music programs all of them volunteer they won't say much

since get what they know you require it will rise to the occasion he says noting that he has some students who only come to school because of the choir we talk about his challenge of trying to teach my music in the harsh world of an inner city high school i refuse to give up i believe there is somehow it's important that we save these kids who have some purpose in mind anderson says we are going to play the puzzle i tried to put forth a certain ideas that i hope will will provoke

thought of not actual action it i hope that i don't think maybe one does tend to go over the line a little bit on this but i hope that i don't just stir up the arm mulch for the sake of staring at to see what words while the war provided it certainly is is business used a lot i do i do consciously think about provoking thought on the missouri provoking temper or do that as well all and yeah i i admit to being all the discomfort and i admit to being the bar under the saddle i think that's my job we'd like to hear your questions

and comments about this program call us at one eight hundred two three ninety five to three three for writer vine the way the alabama experience box eighty seven thousand tuscaloosa alabama three five four eight seven up it's been