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Published: April 8th 2008
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Posted by Onaxthiel: Evergreen, AL isn't really an overly stimulating town to spend your morning in. We had stopped for the night there mostly because it was a good jump off to get to a potentially more interesting town in eastern Alabama. This town is called Enterprise, but surprisingly, this stop was in no way connected to our nerdy love of Star Trek. Instead, it was connected with our nerdy love of kitsch and Americana. Enterprise is known (if known is really the appropriate term for the town,) for having a statue of a boll weevil in its town square. This dates back to the depression, when the town experienced a huge crop failure due to the mischievous insects. The Rand McNally guide claims it's a six foot statute, and I must say we were somewhat disappointed. As so many people say about the Alamo “it looks so small in person.” The trick here is that there really is a six foot statue, but it's actually a six foot statue of a woman, holding the boll weevil over her head. The chitinous little critter is only about eight inches long. Don't get me wrong, that's still pretty good. I wouldn't want
to be confronted by a host of eight inch bugs. It would be like living in a low budget Sci-Fi Channel original movie. We had really been hoping for a six foot tall steel weevil (a good name for a rock band, !) standing on its haunches, lording its victory over the town, the people it now oppressed from its downtown throne! Alas, the town of Enterprise doesn't have such a sense of high drama, so on this rainy day, after driving a bit over an hour out of the way, Obfuscator decided to get out in the rain and ask a local if indeed, we were looking at the famous statue. So we were. A bit disappointed, we started on the road towards the capitol city of Montgomery.
The area around the Alabama statehouse is filled up with state office buildings. They all feature aspects of classic architecture, but are really modern office buildings. The distinct style is done to maintain harmony with the central hub of the capitol district, the Old Statehouse. When we first arrived at this historic place, we had just missed the previous tour, so we went to kill some time at the Civil
Rights Monument nearby. The monument memorializes the people that were killed in the quest for equality, and was designed by the same woman who designed the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington D.C. This Saturday visit was the day after the 40th anniversary of the death of MLK Jr., and so it was overrun with school children and families. As such, we only viewed the outside of the museum. Barely a block away stands MLK Jr.'s original congregation, where he preached his first sermon, and where much of the planning of the Montgomery bus boycott was done.
Finally the time came to head back to the capitol and check the place out. Our tour was led by either a man who was a true American hero or very prone to confabulation. He told some very good stories, so pending further investigation on the part of Obfuscator and I, I will not make any further statements as regards his very entertaining tour. Pertinent details of objective fact include that the state house was built in 1850, and has had two expansions added in its history, more than tripling its size. The building has a pretty typical construction for statehouses, but since
it is no longer a functioning legislative building, the people of Alabama have taken the time and expense to restore the structure to as much of the original feel as possible. Different carpeting, different paints and slightly different highlights in the halls show the changes in the eras of the various expansions. Alabama also was the very first capitol of the Confederacy, and the senate chambers have been preserved just as they were on the day the vote for succession and a new government was taken.
Driving west from Montgomery took us to the small town of Selma, well known from the civil rights era. It was the site of one of the most notorious attacks on civil rights protesters in the entire period. Since we were visiting on Saturday evening, the museums in town were closed. A walking tour showed us the bridge that the marchers were attacked on, a formidable landmark in its own right. With all the museums closed for the day, we were forced to wander a bit blindly and see what else we could find. There were lots of churches, One of which was the organizational center of the marches, though we couldn't be
sure which it was. A set of pillars mark a Civil War era munitions factory that was burned by the Union in the closing days of the war. On this Saturday evening, there wasn't much else to see in Selma, AL.
From there, it was a drive north towards Tuscaloosa. Looking at our motel options, there wasn't much. A weather call revealed that the night wouldn't be too high a chance of rain, so we opted to head for a nearby state park. It was a nice enough place, but we were continuously harassed through the night by a nosy park employee. I finally started to lose my temper when she was shining a light in my eyes at 11 at night to ask about our lack of a tent. Places that nowhere post a need for a tent, don't verbally express the need, and then harass you over lacking walls around your sleeping bag irritate me. After my responses became a bit less polite, she conceded that our staying the night wouldn't pose much of a problem, and we had a calm night from there on out.
Lessons learned: Sometimes, you really do need to just let
civil servants know what a pain in the butt they are. Not biting their heads off, just a bit of a prod to let them know that there is no profit in continuing to obstruct you.
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