Of all the random Auburn folk art — this stuff becomes generational or iconic, it ages well or it disappears — I’ve never run across this one. But in my quixotic quest to get my car fixed I found this in the office of a body shop. The tiger ate the Alabama A logo. And the poor predator looks miserable:
If you look closely, however, you might realize that it isn’t folk art. That’s why it would be unfamiliar to young eyes. It is, in fact a newspaper editorial cartoon. Someone clipped it from the Mobile Press Register and had it matted and framed. I believe the date says 1985. That tiger and Bo Jackson ate the A.
I wonder what was on the other side of the newsprint.
At the famous Drop It Like It’s Hot church on one of my bike rides:
Coach Frank Tolbert, you see, is such an important man that near the end of his career he gets both sides of the church sign. That’s a rarity in this part of the world, where a common approach is to assume that the people going east might need a different message than the people going west.
When I was in college I had the good fortune to broadcast the postseason run for one of Tolbert’s trips to the Final Four in basketball. He is a stern, but kind man. He doesn’t suffer nonsense, but it isn’t hard to see how the kids he works with are where he starts and stops. The community has been fortunate to have his help in shaping lives for more than four decades.
This gas station cover is at Niffer’s, hence the charming graffiti and the unfortunate security sticker. (Pro tip: When people sign their names to things, don’t put an adhesive on that surface. That isn’t advertising, it is an annoyance.)
Interesting, though, is to wonder how old this thing is. Niffers just turned 20 last year, so it could be in that ball park. But it has to be earlier. Note the total sale. No one anticipated you buying more than $9.99 at a time from this pump. The price registered in cents per gallon. (As it should, say car drivers everywhere.)
Sort of makes you miss the old days of the plastic tumbling numbers rather than the digital displays now sucking your wallet dry.
Directly above our table at Niffers, meanwhile:
Phone numbers were four digits when that sign was installed at its original location. Dunlop & Harwell is still around today, but it is a small firm. You don’t see many of their signs, metal or otherwise.
