Tag Archives: Alabama

Helen Keller and Tuscumbia, Alabama

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I always forget that people come from all over the world to our little corner of northwest Alabama to see Helen Keller’s birthplace, Ivy Green, in Tuscumbia. I drive past the historic site practically every day and love seeing school buses and tour buses and license tags from All Those Other Places That Are Not Alabama.  If you’ve never been, you’ve got to schedule a visit. The birthplace is down-home and low-key and you will learn so much. Everyone’s always amazed to see how small the cabin is where Anne Sullivan took her wild-child charge for some intense one-on-one training — and how close the building is to the Keller’s actual house. And the famous water pump is there, too. Now is a good time to come. It’s the Helen Keller Festival, a week of music, art, history, Southern culture and deaf/blind awareness. You also can watch an outdoor performance of “The Miracle Worker” on the Ivy Green grounds — essentially watching the story unfold on the very spot where it happened. Learn more at http://www.helenkellerfestival.com and http://www.helenkellerbirthplace.org/. And while you’re there, be sure to wander around downtown Tuscumbia. You’ll find a cozy local bookstore with real nooks and crannies and comfortable reading spots, a chic women’s boutique, an authentic drugstore where you can get actual old-fashioned milkshakes and malts and my favorite spot of all: A prom- and wedding-dress shop smack dab next to a feed store. I didn’t realize how incongruous this was until one day I saw some Folks Not From Around Here taking a photo. I personally don’t see anything weird about it, but then I’m someone who knows that when you order “tea” in a restaurant, it’s supposed to come in a long tall icy glass and be sweet enough that the spoon stands by itself. So there you go.

Cookbooks

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I’ll bet you thought that “Sister Schubert” was the product of marketing folks sitting around a table brainstorming the image of a sweet and gracious Southern woman who just happens to make The Best Rolls Ever. Ever. But Sister Schubert is an actual real person — she really is a sweet and gracious Southern woman who makes The Best Rolls Ever. Patricia Barnes Schubert — “Sister” is her childhood nickname — is an Alabama native who built a successful bread company from her grandmother’s recipe for Everlasting Rolls. Schubert was in Tuscumbia, Alabama, this past week signing copies of her new cookbook, “Cast Your Bread Upon the Waters,” and demonstrating a recipe for Lemon-Blueberry Trifle at the weekly Spring Park Farmers’ Market. I sat under a tent with her for a few minutes and loved watching people come up to look at the cookbooks and then slowly recognize the woman sitting there as the woman pictured on the book cover. If I had a Sister Schubert roll for every time somebody said, “I didn’t know there was a real Sister Schubert,” I’d have a lot of rolls. These frozen delights are a staple for Southern meals — everybody’s got a pan or two stashed away for bread emergencies. Read the story I wrote about her visit to Tuscumbia and check out the recipe at http://www.timesdaily.com/article/20100616/NEWS/100619858. Her story of hard work and determination — and family and faith  — truly is inspiring.

Florence, Alabama

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“Come on in. May we help you?” As soon as you push open the heavy wood and glass door and step onto the creaky floorboards, you know you’re someplace special. And that place is Wilson’s Fabrics in downtown Florence, Alabama, where northwest Alabama families have been coming for 61 years for everything from fabric for wedding dresses to emergency repair of buttons and hems. Robbie Wilson, 60, is closing the store his parents — his father was “The Tall Man with the Low Prices” — founded. At one time, the fabric business was good. From this first storefront, the Wilson family expanded their company into six stores across northwest Alabama. But after business peaked in the 1980s and ’90s (remember all those gorgeous handsmocked dresses we made back then?), the company had to close store after store until only this, the original, remained. Small local fabric shops are going the way of small local bookstores  — probably already have. “People don’t sew anymore,” said Robbie Wilson, smiling ruefully, when I went to pay my last respects at the shop earlier this week. The combination of readily available inexpensive ready-to-wear clothes and the steady rise of big box do-it-yourself chains such as Hobby Lobby and Jo Ann’s Fabrics didn’t help, either. Plus, downtown Florence took a major hit when the local family-owned department store sold out and then closed a few years ago. “But Florence is a vital and changing downtown,” Wilson said, ever optimistic. “It’s just going to go in a new direction, with new opportunities.” Someone has leased his store space and is opening a gift shop there, he added. But nothing will replace the antique cash register, the yellowing handwritten signs, the piles of fabrics and patterns in the back where you knew treasures lay hidden, just waiting to be unearthed. Like so many others, I have many Wilson’s memories. I remember chasing my brother under the fabric tables when we were little. Later, when my own children were little, I lovingly fingered fine cotton and browsed through smocking plates as I planned Easter outfits. And later still, when I worked at the newspaper office just a couple blocks away, I’d duck into Wilson’s for thread or ribbon or pins or whatever I needed for an ongoing project. Sigh. We’re going to miss you.

Shopping

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I drive by this store in Tuscumbia, Alabama, at least twice a day. It’s a discount/closeout/salvage type of retailer that has all sorts of bargains to browse through. Plus, since it’s gotten warmer, the owners have put this patio furniture outside in an fenced-in area right beside the highway. For weeks as I’ve driven past, I’ve glanced over and thought to myself, “Oh, that’s so nice that they’ve put signs on their furniture warning folks that it’s ‘hot wood’ so they don’t touch it or sit down and maybe hurt themselves.” Yeah, I know, I know — but how else to explain signs that say “Hot Wood”? I suddenly one day realized, of course, that the signs actually say “Not Wood” instead of “Hot Wood” and are advertising furniture made out of sturdy wood-like plastic. Sort of reminds me of the sign in Huntsville, Alabama, that I mistook for a neighborly invitation to “Drink Locally” when I was really being asked to “Bank Locally” — although I’m a big fan of both. But surely your first thought when you saw the furniture photo was “Hot,” too. Right? Please??? A little help here??? And in more drive-by double-takes, my Dear Husband was the one who first spotted this John Deere tractor parked in the car lot of a dealership in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. “You’ve got to go take a picture of it,” he said. “I’ve never seen a tractor for sale at a car dealership.” So I checked it out, and he was right: The sight of a farm tractor parked in the midst of mini-vans for sale is a bit jarring. I mean, did somebody trade the tractor for a car? Would people wandering through the lot looking at the latest sedan models suddenly decide they wanted a tractor instead? Or maybe are tractors now the new family vehicle and we’re at the beginning of a surprising new trend? I’ll keep you posted. In any case, I love living someplace where cars and tractors happily co-exist.

Of Closets and Purses

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Yup, this is a car full of clothes. And while it’s my car, they are not my clothes. A couple of us helped a friend moved this past weekend. “All I’ll have to do is some cleaning and move some things out of the closets,” she said. And we said, “Sure, we can handle that. No problem.” I volunteered for the closet transport, but that was before I remembered that my friend LOVES clothes and LOVES shopping and has the wardrobe to prove it. Yikes! Younger Daughter was around to help with the first closet of winter clothes in my friend’s spare bedroom, which only filled my back seat. This is the contents of my friend’s double closet that held her spring and summer things, which you know here in the South accounts for 75 percent of what we wear. “You’re not going to put this on your blog, are you?” my friend asked, nervously. “And when you do, just don’t say my name.” But, honestly, I was impressed with how organized and efficient her closet system was. I tried to duplicate that as I filled up the closets in her new house, but I’m afraid she’s going to have to redo.

And if she had known how big a slob I actually am, she may not have entrusted her closets to me.  I’ve learned how to disguise my tendency toward total chaos and yuckiness, but my husband could certainly tell her.  As a journalist, however, I’ve pledged to tell only the truth. So I revealed all my disgusting habits — well, some, anyway — in my weekly newspaper column at http://www.timesdaily.com/article/20100528/NEWS/100529900. Read it at your own peril.

Lost and Found

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I had a 24-hour run of very weird things happen to me — well, weird in my world, at least. Some of this may be slightly gross, so you have been warned. First, I lost my underwear. What happened was that I was visiting Older Daughter and I was taking a shower in 2-year-old grandson Capt. Adorable’s bathroom. I brought clean clothes in and took off my pajamas and underwear and then when I got out of the shower and got dressed in my clean clothes and gathered up my already-worn clothes, I could not find my underwear. Anywhere. Completely disappeared. I looked in all the towels and under the rugs, but nada. I even wondered if they’d gotten tangled up in the clean clothes — cargo capris and a T-shirt — I’d just put on but they didn’t seem to be there anywhere. (Notice how I’m trying to avoid the use of the word “underpants” since I am a good Southern girl and we just don’t use language like that out loud in mixed company.) My son-in-law gives my 2-year-old grandson Capt. Adorable his bath in that bathroom and I really didn’t want either of them to find my missing … well, you know, but a thorough search turned up nothing.  So I sort of forgot about the mystery and went on about the day — playing outside, going out for lunch, meeting and greeting — until a few hours later when I returned to the bathroom. And as I was leaving, I felt something soft skitter down my leg and there on the floor was the missing article of clothing. It apparently had gotten tangled up in my pants and had only then worked its way down. Very strange. And what I want to know is: Has this happened to anybody else? Is there an epidemic of underwear falling out of people’s pants legs? Do I need to be on the lookout for this?

And the weirdness only continued: The next day I was late for a hair appointment but the salon was closed when I got there so I left to run more errands and then the stylist got there after all and thought I was late but I came back and we were each glad we hadn’t given in to our impulses to leave scathing voice mails. So I got in the chair and she started cutting and all of a sudden she asked me if I had any old pantyhose. (Yes, even when it’s 95 degrees and 95 percent humidity, we Southern women will still wear pantyhose.) Turns out hair salons are collecting the hair that usually ends up on the floor and sending it to the Gulf for use in buoys that will soak up some of the oil spill. And also collecting pantyhose to put the hair in. The stylist and I debated the merits of used versus new pantyhose for oil-soaking-up and didn’t reach any conclusion. But my hair did contribute to the cause.

Then I needed lunch but my favorite downtown lunch place turned out apparently not to be my favorite since it had closed two weeks ago and I didn’t even know. So then I craved a veggie burger from Burger King but the nearest BK had a note on the door saying its broiler was broken although they could still fry anything you wanted. Add in road work and detours everywhere. So there you go.

But all was well this morning because my weekly column in the Florence, Alabama, TimesDaily ran next to a story about “Sex and the City” fashion so my column and photo is right next to a the headline that reads “Fabulous at any age.”  Yes, ma’am. I’ll take any adjacent and reflected glory I can get.

Gardens

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When you walk up to my friend Sharon’s house in Madison, Alabama, you can tell a gardener lives there by the gorgeous landscaping and flowers in her front yard. But it’s the backyard that shines. This is a gardening paradise and I could move right in and live there — and Sharon’s an easygoing and generous sort of friend so she probably wouldn’t mind. Much, that is. This is the kind of backyard where details delight everywhere you look. I’m not a gardener so all I know about her plantings are that they’re beautiful. I was more drawn to such treasures as benches tucked away in quiet little corners, paths angling off into green adventure and a chandelier hanging from a tree lighting the table. “We wanted it to be a series of outdoor rooms,” Sharon said, “like an extension of our house.” And the thing is that she and her husband did this all themselves over the past 15 years, working on one project in one spot at a time. The result? A backyard paradise that anybody can duplicate. In face, Sharon’s garden is on the Huntsville (Alabama) Botanical Garden’s Spring Garden Tour, 1-6 p.m., Saturday and Sunday, June 5-6. Her goal is to convince folks that you don’t need money and a team of landscapers and gardeners to create something wonderful. I think she’s succeeding. Call 256-830-4447 or visit www.hsvbg.org for details about the garden tour.

Seafood

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I used to have a rule about only eating rare/raw seafood (and I’m talking mainly raw oysters here) when I actually can see the water it came out of, but after realizing that limits me to about (maybe if I’m lucky) five or so days out of the year, I decided to make exceptions for beautifully cooked ahi tuna. (And, OK, Appalachicola Bay oysters at Birmingham’s Fresh Market.) Good thing, too, because northwest Alabama is nowhere near tuna water and I would have missed out on this incredibly delicious Ahi Tuna Salad from Dish Gourmet Cafe in Florence. I promise you that it tastes as good as it looks — sort of sweet and salty and oceany all at the same time. I loved the mixture of the rich velvety tuna with the crunchy wasabi-coated peas. I told my friend that I’d give her a piece of the tuna so she could taste it, but somehow as our lunch progressed I looked down at my plate and there was none left to share. I am a bad friend. But a good eater. Learn more about Dish, a fun and friendly downtown lunch spot, at http://dishgourmetcafe.com

Children

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My dear husband always cautions me against overloading you all with photos of 2-year-old grandson Capt. Adorable, but I can’t help it. I mean, he is so adorable, right? And it’s the weekend and I only have about 10 minutes before Dr. Who starts and I haven’t blogged for a couple of days so I really want to get something up here and I was browsing through my photos and saw this and I knew — I KNEW — you would want to see it, too. I mean, look at those curls! That determined look in his eyes. Those precious little baby knees. Adorable!!! This is at the opening this past week of the new Earth Fare — now officially my most favorite grocery ever, although I still cannot pass by a Whole Foods or Fresh Market without stopping — in Huntsville, Alabama. All sorts of vendors were outside passing out samples and free stuff — Party Time! Anyway, we were lured over to the kettle-corn guys by the irresistible kettle-corn smell and Capt. Adorable immediately was taken with their cart shaped like an old-fashioned car — or maybe it really was some kind of old car or something. The kettle-corn guys told us all about it but I was too busy drinking in the Captain’s adorability to listen closely. It’s a grandma thing.

Gulf Coast

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This is the Gulf Coast my family loves — serene white beaches, startlingly clear water and nature peacefully humming along, doing its thing without any interference from us. But we’ve sort of messed that up lately. Coastal communities in Alabama, Mississippi, Florida and Louisiana are in hurricanne-like crisis mode as oil gets closer from the recent BP deepwater drilling rig explosion that killed 11 people and is leaking more than 200,000 gallons of crude a day. Nobody can predict for sure what’s going to happen. But it for sure is not good. Read the Pensacola, Florida, News Journal at http://www.pnj.com/ ; the Biloxi, Mississippi, Sun Herald at http://www.sunherald.com/; and the Mobile, Alabama, Press-Register at http://www.al.com/press-register/ for the latest oil-spill news and volunteer opportunities.