Amy's Extraordinary Alabama: Alabama Curiosities by Andy Duncan

By Amy

I discovered the book Alabama Curiosities: Quirky characters, roadside oddities & other offbeat stuff
by Andy Duncan in the school library where I substitute teach. Of course the title caught my interest. I'm a native Alabamian and love this state, but let's face it. We have our fair share of curiosities. As I'm sure other states do as well.

This is the second book Duncan has written about Alabama's Curiosities. You can check out the first here.

Duncan shares his lists of interesting town names in Alabama in the introduction along with a few other state quirks. He then divides the curious aspects of our state into five regions: coastal, east central, southeast, north, and west.

From the Interstate Mullet Toss (and we're not talking about the 80s hairstyle) at the Flora-Bama to the world's largest office chair in Anniston, Alabama Curiosities is filled with the wonderfully quirky and odd things that make our state what it is.

The Day My Husband Tried to Kill Me in the WalMart Parking Lot

By Margaret of The Brown Recluse

It was the annual Pro Bass Fishing Tournament in the Shoals. WalMart, the local sponsor, was so packed that cars were waiting to pull into the furthermost parking places in the lot. Normally, my husband and I would have come back at some later time, but caught up in the excitement, we parked in an obscure place and went in to fight the crowd. After loading the car with our newest wares from our WalMart adventure, I proceeded take the shopping cart back to the corral. (I hate carts all over the parking lot). The problem this day was that the corral was a few rows away because of our so-far-away parking space. Ole Boy must have gotten impatient because before I could get back, he was backing out of the space....in MY car... so I truck on over to the car to get in. By the time I get there, he's at the end of the row, ready to enter exiting traffic.

But...as I begin to get in...HE TAKES OFF!!! And I'm only half in! Now you have to picture this, I've got one foot in, one foot out, one cheek in, one cheek out. My head is sticking out above the hood of the car, and the door frame catches me on the "one cheek in, one cheek out" area and propels me, hopping on that "one foot out" alongside the car. Now, I am not a small girl, and I assure you, this was no pretty sight! As you can imagine, I am completed outraged at his lack of consideration for me, not letting me get completely into MY car before he takes off. I'm shouting such things as "Whoa!" and "STOP!! What are you doing??" and he stops....right in the middle of two lanes of traffic going in opposite directions. That's right, folks....I stopped traffic, but not in the way I had pictured in my mind that someday I would... Remember, the parking lot is completely full, and by now, many people are watching the spectacle that I am. I get in the car, and everyone in the parking lot can hear my heated displeasure. I did yell. Uh-lot.

When I finally calmed down, Ole Boy tried to explain. It seems that there was a break in traffic, and someone had motioned for him to come out. So he did! That wasn't a very good explanation in my opinion, so I yelled again. He then said, "I don't see what the big deal is, when I took off, I would just leave you standing there!" I then begin to explain to him just what happened, and how I was hopping along side of the car, half in, half out, etc. etc. etc., and he apparently got a sudden mental image of his not-so-small wife being propelled across the WalMart parking lot on one of the busiest days of the year, and he laughed. And laughed. And pulled over to laugh some more. I resolved in my heart that I would never speak to him again.

As he pulled into our drive way, I calmly got out, got into the driver's side, waited for him to unload the car by himself, and I went to see my Mom for some proper sympathy. I went in and told her my story....and she laughed. She tried not to when she saw that I was not laughing, but that made it even worse for her. I was finding nothing funny about this, mind you. Then my sister walked in, and I began to tell her of my misfortune of the abusive husband and the uncaring mother...and she laughed, and Mom got tickled again. Later, Ole Boy brought me chocolate. Yeah, I forgave him.

Amy's Extraordinary Alabama: Small Town Life.

By Amy

While Alabama is home to a few larger metropolitan areas like Birmingham, Montgomery, Mobile and a few others most of our state is made up of the small cities and towns.

And as I've mentioned before I live in one of those small cities and over my next few posts here on Alabama Bloggers I'm going to introduce you to my small city and some of the reasons I love it.

Small town life can be quite entertaining if you let it. And while quirkiness abounds in any area it seems to take center stage in smaller cities and towns.

Last summer I was walking into my chiropractor's office checking email on my blackberry when catching a glimpse of something amiss I look up to find a new character I've never met before in our beloved little city.

Meet the "Crazy Cow."

The "Crazy Cow" is a fundraiser by a local church youth group. One morning a business owner will show up to find the crazy cow in front of their business along with a note. The note informs them that in order to have the "Crazy Cow" removed they must pay a certain amount (I think it's around $10.00) to have it moved to the business of their choice. The next morning another business owner is surprised with the oversized decoration.

When I asked my chiropractor about it he eagerly looked forward to having it sent to another chiropractor friend of his in town.

By the time the "Crazy Cow" traveled its way around town everyone enjoyed many great chuckles at the game and the youth group had raised some funds to help their summer programs.

So now I want to know, what are some quirky, small town games and fundraisers that the majority of your town participates in?

Uncle Joe's Tot Locker: Answers, Finally.

If you were one of the many in the state that saw this:

during our snow "events" and begged for answers, I found them. Click here for the rest of the story.

I Hate Honking - (A Random Op-Ed).

I sincerely hate honking. I refuse to do it, with one exception: if honking is necessary to stop someone from running into me. The only problem is that since that is the only time I use my horn, I usually can't even find it quickly enough to prevent a problem. THAT'S how rarely I honk.

It's just a mega pet peeve.

It just feels like an outpouring of temper. Anger. And I don't like anger. I ESPECIALLY don't like punitive honking - you know, when the event is already over, but a person honks anyway to show their aggravation. THAT is certainly unnecessary and rude.

Traffic Light Honking (i.e. when the first person in line isn't looking and the light turns green) is okay, but only after waiting a LONG time, and then only a slight tap. I actually can't even stomach doing this. I usually wait until the light is turning yellow again, and then MAYBE I'll give them a small tweet of the horn. After all, I have been tending to a baby in the backseat and missed a light before - maybe that's what they are doing.

When someone honks at me, it puts me in a sad, bad mood for a few minutes. I feel like I've just been chewed out by a complete stranger, usually for something that wasn't my fault (at least I like to think so).

Ali and I went to the grocery store yesterday right at 5pm-grocery-store-rush-hour, and so the parking lot was crazy. I am especially cautious in parking lots due to my recent parking-lot "issues". As I was turning into the parking lot, someone in that row was pulling out of a parking space. I didn't want to risk going past them before they got out and on their way, so I waited for a minute and let them go first. I was well out of the road, but the person behind me didn't want to wait. He laid on his horn for a few seconds.

I parked, and Mr. Rude Honker parked across the aisle from me. As I was getting Ali out of the car, I looked out of the corner of my eye to behold this rude person. I suppose it could have been perceived as a glare if one already had a guilty conscience about their rudity (I like the feel of rudity better than rudeness. It seems to more fully communicate the utter barbaric scurrilousness of honking).

It was a very young guy in a snappy business suit. Younger than me. Seeing that I was looking at him, he yelled out to me, "Sorry, but you were just sitting there."

Awkward.

I didn't really want to have a conversation with him, but felt that I needed to respond, so instead of saying, "Do you know how barbarically scurrilous you are?!?!", I said: "Jesus loves you and so do I!". Ok, no I didn't say that either. I said: "Well I had to wait for someone to move out of the aisle before I could go."

He must have been coming for just one item, because by the time Ali and I got into the store, he was already in line checking out. I tried to avert my gaze, but of course he was looking at me.

Awkward.

I hate honking. If you're a honker, sorry. I don't hate you, I hate your actions.

Originally published on November 8, 2008 at Grasping for Objectivity in my Subjective Life.

A Neighborhood Mystery is Afoot. . .

A few days ago, I walked out to get the mail. When I got there, I was quite puzzled by the sudden appearance of this:


NO, not all the dirt and grime on our mailbox. That's always been there and has no projection of being removed any time soon.

A raised, green reflective dot, about the size of a quarter, had suddenly appeared.

Why? Who decided that I needed a reflective dot on my mailbox? Isn't it a federal crime to mess with mail or MAIL CONTAINERS?

So I started looking around.

Across the street: Freddy and Christie had the very same dot.

(You can see it's reflective properties in that picture)

I widened my investigation. Next door: They had a RED dot!!!!


In fact, upon further investigation, most of our neighbors had the RED dot.

But then, some neighbors had no dot at all (for instance, Alice had NO dot, which assuaged my fears that they were marking bloggers).

(Then again, Freddy hasn't blogged in about 10 1/2 decades, so he most likely wouldn't have gotten marked in that case)

Ali and I did an unofficial mailbox survey while out on a walk yesterday and discovered that:

• 33.65% of mailboxes had no dot .
• 64.35% of mailboxes had red dots.
• In the whole neighborhood, there were only two houses with green dots. Ours and Freddy and Christie's.
  

I am quite puzzled as to the meaning of these dots.

Are we marked for execution?

Or are all the red dots marked for execution and we're marked to be spared?

My un-fun, logical theories are:

• There's a new person doing the newspaper route who can't read numbers, so in true equal opportunity form, someone went through and marked with colors. Maybe green means we get the weekend papers only, red means daily, and no dot means no paper. (I need to survey Alice and Freddy and Christie's paper practices to help prove this theory.)
  
  
• Maybe they are related to garbage pickup. (Although this would be a riot since we've never paid for our garbage pickup due to being completely unable to get them to send us a bill. Half the time I think that they just pick up everybody's garbage without regard to the fact that we have no sticker, and the other half of the time I think that it must be on auto-draft out of the former house-owner's checking account, and in a very un-accounting like fashion, they never look at it. Oops.)

My preferable, more inventive theories are:

• Someone is going through and marking the excellent neighbors (green), the bad neighbors (red) and the neutral or hermit neighbors (no dot). We are being classified and a neighborhood caste system is being created. Which means, of course, that we are at the top echelon of neighborhood caste society. YESSSS.
  
  
• A city is finally looking at annexing us and is surveying the neighborhood for people who already have code violations. Like, for instance,
  
  • The man with 200 white homing pigeons in his backyard (housed in 6 huge birdhouses) = non-annex material.
  • The people with the skateboard park in their backyard = non-annex material.
  • Freddy and Christie, with their immaculate yard, house, and fence = annex material.
  • But then again, we have a green dot. So I guess that blows that theory.
    

Anyone else have any theories?

Or better yet, has anyone else had any mysterious mailbox dottage happen in your neighborhood?

This post was originally published at my personal blog, Grasping for Objectivity in my Subjective Life, on May 14, 2009

Mysteries of the ALDOT

A lot of stuff happens every four years. The Olympics, the Presidential Election, and I have to get my driver's license renewed. I actually just now realized that it fell on the same four year schedule as the previous two things - maybe that will help me remember next go-round.

Anyway, so Ali and I headed to the lovely boutique known as the Alabama Department of Transportation (ALDOT) today.

We get in line, and as we're standing there, I see a sign that says "no debit or credit - only cash or checks". BUT the window right next to that one had the Visa/Mastercard sticker. I ponder this for a few minutes, knowing that I don't have a check or enough cash to get my DL. I finally realize that apparently if you're getting your TAG renewed, they take plastic. But if you're getting your Plastic renewed (aka Driver's License), they don't. Go figure.

So Ali and I get out of line, stroll across the parking lot to the Post Office, buy enough stamps to not feel auspicious by getting cash back with the purchase (that magic number of stamps is 10, just in case you wondered), then stroll back across the parking lot and get in line again. Miraculously, only two people got to skip ahead of us due to my lack of proper fundage.

So now I'm looking around at all of the signs to make sure that I haven't missed something else, and I notice that the line on the OTHER side of me where they are doing driver's tests only takes Cash, Credit or Debit - NO checks!!

So, as a public service announcement, let me summarize what you can and cannot use at the ALDOT:

Tag Renewal: They'll take anything. Even your firstborn, I hear.
Driver's License: Cash or Checks only, please. They don't believe in taking plastic, only issuing it.
Driver's Test for New License: Cash or Debit/Credit only, no checks. Apparently they are afraid of all of the sixteen year olds running around kiting bad checks.

Yes, these lines are all run by the same infamous Jefferson County figure, Travis A. Hulsey. So why the disparity in options?

Which brings us to ALDOT Mystery #2:

Why in the world are you supposed to make your checks out to Travis A. Hulsey?? Why not ALDOT?? What kind of scheme is he running?

Now obviously it's not his original scheme, because we all USED to make our checks out to Randy Godeke. But apparently Randy got enough cash and checks from us that he is good to go, and passed the reigns to his buddy Travis.

Ah, the world will never uncover the mysteries of the ALDOT.

This post was originally published on September 25, 2008 at Grasping for Objectivity in my Subjective Life.

Biscuits of Shame, A Review

Mama Hen at Long Days, Short Years is one of my favorite Alabama Bloggers. She writes about her family's everyday life in a down-to-earth, yet entertaining way. And, by the way, she is an authentic, wonderfully sweet Southern Woman.

She published a post not long ago that her husband wrote. It cracked me up and was the exact kind of "southern humor" that I want to feature here. So, after sending him a pot of beef stew or ten, he agreed to let me publish it here as well.

---

My Sweet Hubby is a true Renaissance Man. There isn't much he can't do. He can even do fractions with little or no effort. Anyhoo, he writes the best stories. He is a natural storyteller. He shared this with me the other day and I begged him to let me put it on the blog. After much begging and threats to not make anymore beef stew he agreed. Ya'll let him know if you have any special memories of your grandmother or mother like this.

Biscuits of shame, A Review, by Pappa Rooster

I am a connoisseur of biscuits.

The other day I had a person I formerly respected tell me that the best biscuits can be found at McDonalds. This offended me greatly until I realized that biscuit making has become a thing of the past in modern southern homes. Most southern homes today are southern in name only, most are filled with northerners, some of which were born in the south and then were consumed by northernisms. Most modern women make whomp biscuits. These are biscuits that come in a can and are whomped on the counter to open the can. Thinking of whomp biscuits makes me want to throw up. As Jerry Clower (a great American) once said “ in my neighborhood some mornings, it sounds like a small war going on with women making their families can biscuits in the morning”.

I have heretofore endeavored to give some history of biscuits in an effort to educate the lost south to the finer arts of the craft.

In the United Kingdom biscuits refer to a hard un-sweet cookie like baked good, of little or no taste. No wonder the pilgrims left, and it really is no wonder a bunch of farmers with pitchforks beat the British Empire like a rented mule; the British were improperly outfitted with some sort of European “biscuit”. These European biscuits are the reason that in all portraits of Napoleon he is always holding his stomach under his jacket. I also have it from a reliable source that stomach cramps were a major reason he was defeated at Waterloo. But I digress.

Fast food chains have it all wrong.

A good and decent biscuit must be made with love. The use of frozen dough is one of the things that is wrong with this country. Some of the fast food places make their biscuits from scratch, but you can't put love into a batch of 100 biscuits. I shall first critique several well-known biscuit selling establishments and then tell how a proper biscuit is to be made.

McDonalds – These biscuits are passable for fast food fare. But they are by far the greasiest tested. They are not fluffy enough for my taste and they each look pretty much like the next. If you like grease these biscuits are for you. If you are not a fan of grease pass on these. They will spackle any holes remaining in your arteries.

Chick-Fil-A – these are biscuits in name only. They are like eating a cotton ball. I don’t know for sure but they taste like a frozen biscuit. I bought two that tasted as if they did not finish cooking. I put them in my compost bin.

Burger King – I am not sure if they sell biscuits. There customer service is so poor that I always end up leaving before I am served. A coworker brought me some sort of biscuit-like contraption. It was a bacon, egg, and cheese on a miniature hamburger bun. Looked like something left over from cold war East Germany.

Jacks – Jacks sells biscuits all day. They are ranked best in show by the judge. The only problem is they fall apart. My theory is they need more hog lard.

The way a biscuit should be made is as followed. This should not be deviated from.

First you need an apron. Nothing with ribbon or bows and certainly nothing that says, “Kiss the cook” or “Over 40 and feeling frisky”. It should be hand made of cotton cloth. No fancy print, this is vital. No child should have to remember their mom making biscuits looking like they are about to run a marathon or play tennis, leave the exercise clothes in the closet and be real.
Now open a bin (not a bag) and sift flower onto the counter. This will prevent it from sticking.
Now take some flour and put it on your face. Then wipe some flour on your apron.
There needs to be at least two women in the kitchen, one Mom and one Grandmother.
They need to be talking about the next church social and the best recipe for banana pudding. A radio should be playing it should be set to a station that is playing the Prairie Home Companion, no music.

When a kid comes into the kitchen they should wear a dishtowel tucked into the neck of their shirt, and be instructed on the fine arts of using a rolling pin.

Then use real ingredients. Nothing ruins a biscuit more that straying from what works.

3 tablespoons of hog lard.
1 cup of sour milk (whole milk, none of that 1% 2% or skim stuff, live a little)-when I was a kid we used the milk straight from the cow.
2 ½ cups of flour
1 teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon baking powder

Mix dry ingredients together; cut in lard or shortening.
Slowly blend in milk, just until dry ingredients are moistened.
Roll out on floured counter top to about 1/2-inch thick. (Do not roll too thin.)
Cut with biscuit cutter.
Place on un-greased baking sheet and bake at 350° 10 minutes or until golden brown.

At least that’s how I remember it.

When I was a kid my Grandmother and my mom would make biscuits together. I remember their conversations and the smells and sounds as if it were yesterday.
I would give a great deal to have them together again making biscuits. It was a time when the world was “all good”. When the most important thing was a good biscuit and the biggest problem I had was what to do with my afternoon.

Now go make some memories and some good biscuits.

This is a picture of Pappa Roosters mom, grandmother, and Aunt Ruby cooking in the kitchen that I use today. Don't you just wish you could know what they were discussing that day? This picture makes me so thankful to live in this old house with all it's memories. It reminds me that everyday I am making memories with my children. ~ MamaHen

The Quirks of Our Dear State

I wrote a blog post yesterday called The Unfortunate Case of Frog Duck-Butt, talking about this colorful character on the Galleria Carousel:
And it got me thinking: there are so many quirks, oddities, and unusual things in our state.

For instance: Did you know that there are at least two statues of Jesus encased in glass boxes in our state? I blogged about the one in Birmingham last year, and then my good bloggy friend Lianne (who had been reading my blog for a while but had never read my Jesus in a Box post) ran across one near Tuscaloosa. She obviously saw this a bloggable item, and for pre-blog research, she googled the term "Jesus in a Box" and, of the whole entire world wide web, I was her first search result.

Seriously. What ARE the chances??

So, that being said, surely most of you have blogged about at least one odd item in our state at some point.

So, think hard - I KNOW you've got to have an Alabama quirk post in your archives somewhere. And if you don't, well, get to work! Write one about your favorite local quirk! Or, if you're feeling lazy, feel free to comment it in on this post.

Link your post in below. Or, if Mister Linky is still having issues and a link box doesn't show up below this line (he's been quite infirm of late - be sure to send him a "Get Well Soon" card), leave the link to your post in the comments.

How Did Alabama Get the Short End of the Beach Stick?

There is nothing I love better than going to the beach, and I especially love that I can go to the beach and still be loyal to my wonderful state at the same time.

However, Have you noticed that someone is a bit of a hog down there?

I mean COME ON - Florida has a completely three-sided peninsula with thousands of miles of coastline that is in both the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, but they still HAD to come across Georgia and steal most of our beach too!?!?!?

Here's the stats, as well as I could find with the help of Google:

Florida has over 2,200 miles of coastline.

Do you know how many miles Alabama has? 60.

Our border with Florida is over 150 miles long. If you figure in the curves and dips and squigglies of the coastline, that's AT LEAST 200 miles of coastline.

Stolen.

Before our very eyes!

I can see Florida getting their slickest Politician Salesman with the greasy hair and the fancy suit to come offer to do us a favor: "We want to be good neighbors. That land over there? The nasty sandy land? It's eat up with crabs and sharks and hurricanes!! We'll take the responsibility of that awful land so that you don't have to suffer from all of those ailments."

How do YOU think it happened?

And how can we take them back?

I know it CAN happen, because several years ago when the Perdido Bridge was built, Florida "gave" Alabama an extra mile or so if we agreed to build the bridge. So we ARE taking it back, one mile at a time!

At any rate, here's my proposal, Florida. Take it or leave it (funny, I think I know the answer to that option).

(While we're at it, maybe we can be good neighbors and retrieve Georgia's for them as well.)