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THE BIRMINGHAM TO TUSCALOOSA BREEZEWAY DOGTROT

Children of the Deep South Soil, this is a special report from one Village Elder.

See whether you can immerse yourself in these flashes of long ago joys. See whether you will be inspired to file away and cherish your own lifetime extension of happy treasures.

Everything I say is true and actual.

Driving west from Birmingham, I pass by a ramshackle breezeway home where one wizened whittler quietly shapes his lap sculpture on porch steps, pausing only a moment to look at me and wave a smile before I disappear into the red bug ladybug mist. 

Further on, the West Blocton exit illuminates vivid times where deep inside I still play on Rose Lane, birthplace of my father. The family house is gone now, but part of me is still running around the backyard, next in line to use the outhouse.

Tuscaloosa approaches, and there I am suddenly standing barefoot on clay, recalling times when kinfolk still lived in a breezeway dogtrot house on the North River. I can still taste crystal water dipped from the front yard well, feel its coolness, experience the nurturing of people genetically connected to me.

Good times and fond memories during my time here on Planet Three bounce all over the place.

On the way to T Town, there is the Brookwood exit, where the hope and play of childhood remembers me as a tad adventuring into the woods of Peterson. Nearby homes of grandparents and cousins are my tether, guaranteeing I won’t be lost for long during tiny explorations.

The Birmingham to Tuscaloosa Breezeway Dogtrot memory machine is merrily out of control.

Somewhere hereabouts is Hurricane Creek, where water moccasins and giggly girlfriends play side by side during weekend picnics. Not too far away is Lock 13, a marvel of technology and noise and clanking metals.

All these places intermingle in my childhood playground, and it’s good to call on them when I need to escape the computerized and politicized world for a bit.

Sometimes I recall them, sometimes they recall me right back.

If you can imagine my extensive and erratic Alabama lifespan as a plot of land, you could measure it from Cuba on the Mississippi border to western Jefferson County, from north Birmingham and Northport to Montevallo just south of here.

My forays outside this region are instructive, but there is never any place anything like sweet home Deep South Alabama.

And home is where I still dip into the past to dredge up washboard roads, fossils jutting from chalky riverbanks, sputtering swimmers at play, rolled-down windows, stick shift roadsters, long rope swings, barbed wire fences, pines and scraggly bushes, teetering tree houses, corrugated tin roofs, makeshift bows and arrows, wandering hobos, haunting train whistles, arrowheads here and there, infinitely observable ant beds, penny candy, sparklers and fireflies in the dusk, mysterious attics and damp basements, whispery gossip and tall tales, pet frogs, yodeling playmates, bubblegum cards, and always and forever the homebase, the center of the known universe, my family, my bunk bed, my endless dreams at the end of hard play days.

You children of the Deep South soil, cherish what time you have, pay attention to the tales of elders, protect the young’uns, and hold fast to your fond memories. They might come in handy here and there, now and then

© 2019 A.D. by Jim Reed