More than you ever wanted to know about Alabama native Joe Watts
Quick job for my friends at AccuPrint, downtown Birmingham, Alabama. We’re sending out a monthly postcard with the calendar for the month. Margie decided to have me take a different scene of downtown Birmingham each month. Here’s the second scene (around 3rd Avenue North and 20th Street North):
I have a love/hate relationship with the city we live in. Beautiful architecture, interesting considerate people, some great friends. We have amazing places to eat, some really great shopping, and, although I don’t usually get around to enjoying them, lots of cultural events. Birmingham is big enough to have all the great shopping and dining and still small enough so that you don’t have bad traffic (unless you try to drive down 280). Living in the city, we almost never run into traffic that is terrible. Try doing that in Atlanta.
Of course, there is a downside: we’ve got pretty bad crime. Birmingham has a VERY bad murder rate (not so much in the part of town we live in, but still, not what you’d really like to see).
Birmingham has questionable leadership–still a little early to know for sure, but judging by past performance, I have my doubts. There is such a reliance on old stereotypes and race still polarizes city politics. Maybe we can get past this. I sure hope so.
And, if that’s not enough, Jefferson County, where Birmingham is located, has had some pretty impressive corruption. Loads of county commissioners have gone to jail for graft–taking money (cash and services) in exchange for huge projects with the sewer. There was even an attempt to drill a sewer line under the Cahaba River (source of most of our drinking water). Luckily, it didn’t get completed, but how smart is it to send your sewer line under your drinking water. Enough of a rant for today!
Our camellias in the front yard are blooming as are the Daphne bushes. The Daphne bushes are amazingly fragrant. (If they were inside, my allergies would require them to be discarded, but they smell really nice by the front door.)
Many of the bulbs I’ve planted over the last two years or so are springing up. It shocks me to even think that spring is around the corner.
2007 was a blur. I’m looking forward to having a little time to stop and smell the flowers in 2008.
Seems as though I’m working on lots of newsletters these days. This is a newsletter I’ve intended to put together for a long time and just haven’t gotten around to it. This is the first newsletter for the Alabama Byways Program. Future issues will have more topical information including grant deadlines, tips and more, but for the first issue, it seemed a good idea to send out basic information about exactly what the program is.I’ve been working on byways in Alabama since I took a job at Scenic Alabama back in 1999. I’ve long since left Scenic Alabama, but really fell in love with the byways program. It is one of those really great concepts that lets small communities around Alabama (or, in larger terms, around the country) band together to create something bigger than any of them can create on their own.
Growing up in rural Alabama (I’ve always referred to it as the edge of nowhere because people have actually heard of the middle of nowhere), I’ve always had a love of rural life and the small towns that exist nowhere else. The byways program is my chance to work with these communities. (I’ve also managed to work with Alabama communities on some other projects, too. More on that in another post on another day.)
To read the newsletter, just visit the Alabama Byways website: www.alabamabyways.org/news.htm.
And, in case you are wondering about the seagull, this was taken in February of last year along the beautiful Coastal Connection Corridor that runs from north of Orange Beach over to Dauphin Island and beyond.
Sometimes kitties have a better understanding of things than we do. I’m sitting in my office working (well, Ann and I did get out and rake up many of the remaining leaves and clean out the flower beds). Riley has a much better way of enjoying the sunny day.
Here’s hoping the drought in Birmingham doesn’t last through this summer and our hard work in the yard pays off. Otherwise, I should just be living the life of Riley.
It has been frigidly cold here in Birmingham, AL for the last few days. Down into the teens–and that may not seem too cold to some folks, but if you live in Alabama, it is extreme cold. We feed 4 outdoor cats that more or less came with the house–they are feral and won’t let anyone come near them, but they’ve come to depend on the food we provide. (Yes, we got them “fixed,” so no kittens!)
Two are always here and two others come and go with less frequency. I’ve seen the two that are always here (Callie and Blackie) and have seen the others, but not today. We got really worried about them so I went out and purchased a tiny outdoor dog house for them and put it under the deck. No one has dared venture into it, of course.
Our indoor cats find these outdoor interlopers boring and pay them no attention whatsoever. (The cat in the photo is Callie–she’s been enjoying the nicer weather we are having today by rolling around in the sun and basically saying, thank God I made it through, that sun feels great–time to eat!)