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history

History, the leaves of the present, and the news of the future

A little cool, out, and yet bright and sunny. From the parking lot to the office I get to pass under and by a few bright trees, here are some maples I picked up in Talbird Circle — named in honor of the antebellum president of the university.

He accepted a captain’s commission in the 11th Alabama, stepping down after three months in 1861. The 11th Alabama fought in Virginia, but Talbird, older and not in the proper condition, mustered out before the shooting began.

He returned to Marion, to the school, and then took a colonel’s commission in the 41st Alabama infantry in May of 1862. The 41st marched and skirmished and fought in Tennessee, Mississippi and, briefly, in Virginia, but Talbird wasn’t around for all of that. He served for only a year, primarily at a prison camp, and then perhaps went with the regiment where they fought at Murfreesboro, before leaving the 41st because of a disability.

After the war, Talbird did not return to the university, but went back to the pulpit.

James E. Sulzby, Jr., a Samford grad and lay historian, wrote of Talbird:

It may be said that during the presidency of President Talbird, the college enjoyed its greatest prosperity until that time, yet experienced discouragements and disasters. President Talbird worked diligently on the endowment funds in an attempt to relieve the college of any indebtedness and to guarantee its future success. President Talbird, by his consisten Christian spirit, his fine administrative qualities, and his devotion to the Confederate cause, won in the estimation of all who him a position of wide influence.

Sulzby quotes an 1857 clipping from the Marion Commonwealth where a student wrote “There are not three students in the College by whom President Talbird is not dearly loved.”

And, hey, if only two people don’t love you, that isn’t so bad.

The modern campus has the cul-de-sac named after him. And there are pretty trees, with pretty leaves. I am sharing five of them with you here, having picked them up and carried them into my photo studio. There is more to read, after these:

Things to read … because sometimes words are worth a thousand words.

I hope we’re pleased with ourselves, Rural hospitals in critical condition

Since the beginning of 2010, 43 rural hospitals — with a total of more than 1,500 beds — have closed, according to data from the North Carolina Rural Health Research Program. The pace of closures has quickened: from 3 in 2010 to 13 in 2013, and 12 already this year. Georgia alone has lost five rural hospitals since 2012, and at least six more are teetering on the brink of collapse. Each of the state’s closed hospitals served about 10,000 people — a lot for remaining area hospitals to absorb.

The Affordable Care Act was designed to improve access to health care for all Americans and will give them another chance at getting health insurance during open enrollment starting this Saturday. But critics say the ACA is also accelerating the demise of rural outposts that cater to many of society’s most vulnerable. These hospitals treat some of the sickest and poorest patients — those least aware of how to stay healthy. Hospital officials contend that the law’s penalties for having to re-admit patients soon after they’re released are impossible to avoid and create a crushing burden.

So this sounds bad, Hearing aids stolen from 88-year-old retired naval pilot, but the update suggests one of two happy endings. Company to replace hearing aids reported stolen from 88-year-old veteran plus, the end of the story says the hearing aids were miraculously found. I thought, in reading the first story, that that would ultimately be the case. Funny how calling the police and finding the news media is calling the office can make that happen.

This is one of those shame-it-happened-but-the-timing-was-good kind of stories, Alabama team doctors help save life of LSU policeman struck by car after game:

Alabama team doctors Lyle Cain, Norman Waldrop and Benton Emblom climbed into a motorcade leaving Tiger Stadium on Saturday night, expecting to chat about the Crimson Tide’s thrilling 20-13 overtime win over LSU on their way to the airport.

Less than a mile from the stadium, however, they found their skills needed to save a life, as a car had struck an LSU campus police officer who was escorting the motorcade on a motorcycle.

“Our first thought goes from, ‘Wow, we just won a huge game,’ to ‘Wow, we need to try to save this person’s life,'” Waldrop said.

You don’t say … Americans’ Cellphones Targeted in Secret U.S. Spy Program:

The Justice Department is scooping up data from thousands of mobile phones through devices deployed on airplanes that mimic cellphone towers, a high-tech hunt for criminal suspects that is snagging a large number of innocent Americans, according to people familiar with the operations.

The U.S. Marshals Service program, which became fully functional around 2007, operates Cessna aircraft from at least five metropolitan-area airports, with a flying range covering most of the U.S. population, according to people familiar with the program.

Is it just me, or have you noticed fewer “But if you aren’t doing anything wrong you have nothing to worry about” replies to news like that these days? Seems like you get a lot more “Meh,” instead.

An idea whose time has come, StoryTracker is a new tool to track how news homepages change:

Hopefully you know about PastPages, the tool built by L.A. Times data journalist Ben Welsh to record what some of the web’s most important news sites have on their homepage — hour by hour, every single day. Want to see what The Guardian’s homepage looked like Tuesday night? Here you go. Want to see how that Ebola patient first appeared on DallasNews.com in September? Try the small item here. It’s a valuable service, particularly for future researchers who will want to study how stories moved through new media. (For print media, we have physical archives; for digital news, work even a few years old has an alarming tendency to disappear.)

I wish there was the same sort of thing for old broadcasts. When you invent your time machine, take something like this back with you and just scoop the radio and television signals out of the air, would you?

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29
Oct 14

What are they doing to the salt?

Crimson folks doing Crimson things:

Those are three members of the editorial staff at their budget meeting tonight. Some others are outside of the shot, but they’re there and they’re a good group. They’ve been getting a lot of compliments, and they deserve them.

They are fun, too. It is easy to get sidetracked with them, but the diversions are worth it. Tonight we discussed the movie Face / Off — and you should see the photos from that conversation. Three or four of us know the movie and we tried to explain it to the others. This is not an easy movie to describe to people. “And then John Travolta, played by Nic Cage, who is now a bad guy … ”

So you start throwing in other actors, who weren’t even in that film, to really make it fun.

“And then Sean Connery says … ”

I saw this tonight while standing at the counter and waiting for my burger. First thought?

Seasoned with what?

The more you think about it, the You know what my salt needs? Some flavoring. But what would go well with salt just now?

And what does Nic Cage think about that? The good Nic Cage, I mean, who is really John Travolta. What if one of those guys wants unseasoned salt? What do you do when the other one says he wants salted salt? Why is my burger taking so long?

Things to read … because that never takes too long.

Great question! As journalism and documentary film converge in digital, what lessons can they share? You might see more mini-docs to address the issue of time, more partnerships from unexpected places and, at last, what I think could be the coolest job in the industry: a historist. The historian journalist, or journalist historian, is a wholly unappreciated idea.

In reality, you’ll probably see a lot more interaction. Virtual Reality will be a part of this, among other things.

Mobile payment has already hit a a security/trust issue, Apple Pay rival CurrentC just got hacked:

On Wednesday, those taking part in the CurrentC pilot program received a warning from the consortium of anti-credit-card retailers called MCX, or Merchant Consumer Exchange: The program was hacked in the last 36 hours, and criminals managed to grab the email addresses of anyone who signed up for the program.

MCX confirmed the hack, adding what’s become a go-to line for any company that loses your data: “We take the security of our users’ information extremely seriously.”

Protecting it is another thing, however.

State agency to investors: Prepare for Ebola-related scams

‘Unusual’ Russian flights concern NATO:

An “unusual” uptick in the size and scale of Russian aircraft flying throughout European airspace in recent days has raised alarm bells for NATO officials that come amid other provocations already rattling the West.

Multiple groups of Russian military bomber and tanker aircraft, flying under the guise of military maneuvers, were detected and monitored over sections of the Baltic Sea, North Sea and Black Sea on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Those flights represented an “unusual level of air activity over European airspace,” according to a press release from NATO.

Adding to the concern — none of the Russian aircraft filed customary flight plans or maintained radio contact with civilian aviation authorities or used any of their onboard transponders.

These surely are interesting times.

It is about time this story is being told on film. MY Italian Secret: The Forgotten Heroes:

Would you risk your life to save a stranger? And never talk about it? MY ITALIAN SECRET tells the story of Tour de France cycling champion Gino Bartali and other Italians who saved lives during WWII.

Or if you prefer the 30 for 30 method: What if I told you a man saved 800 lives in between three Giro d’Italia wins and two Tour de France titles?

This is not that film, but it does summarize the story a tiny bit:

Bartali apparently rarely even brought it up, which brings us to this quote from the man himself: “Good is something you do, not something you talk about. Some medals are pinned to your soul, not to your jacket.”

Pretty profound for a guy that just moved his feet around in small circles.

adventures / Friday / history / photo — Comments Off
26
Sep 14

Travel day

We’re traveling to Augusta for a race on Sunday. At a red light in tiny Jackson, Georgia, I saw this historic marker.

I like markers. They give the passerby just enough information to be of slim interest. Some of them may even go home, or to their phone, and look something up on Wikipedia. Or they could just be things you race by without reading even the minimum. Or you could at least get a glance from the header. “Noted Indian Trail” being the most benign one ever.

This was an important trail though, ultimately becoming the Old Federal Road, which connected Savannah to what would become Fort Stoddert in modern Mobile. The Oakfuskee Trail had routes to spots in northeast Alabama, to Oakfuskee Town which was west of Dadeville, Alabama on the Tallapoosa and several other places in between. From those paths came roads and on those roads and in those natural harbors and rivers came towns and cities and that is an important path.

Yes. I would love a used tire, and thank you.

Is there a big market for used tires?

Near home there is a “Bubba’s Medicine Shop.” The place may be great, I don’t know, but I imagine it would be hard for me to shop there. I’m a Big D’s Discount man, myself:

I wanted there to be an incredible backstory for Mr. Big D, especially after this next shot:

Here it is, from the Progress-Argus, and it is the story of a family owned business, two generations worth. Big D is now owned by Fred’s Pharmacy, out of Memphis. Barrett Hoard sold it last year. His father, Danny, was the pharmacist Big D. The mural went up after Danny died a few years ago.

Local lore that I just made up suggests he held every pill bottle up to the light to make sure the free peppermint was on top. He looks like a guy from whom you’d be comfortable picking up an antibiotic.

Danny Hoard bought the store from Parrish Drugs in 1973.

In Jackson, for some unknown reason, there are several pink houses.

Maybe it is in the medication.

We arrived in Augusta safely, just in time for dinner. We met friends at the hotel, they checked in, up from Florida, just as we did. On Sunday we are doing a half Ironman. We’re probably not prepared, but it will be a fun weekend.

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25
Sep 14

What a picture

He’s judging you. The nose looks worn and with a sunburn that has been hard-earned. He’s trying to disarm you with a half smile, but he can’t fake it well enough.

He’s throwing that arm up on the car door, all casual, like he’s talking about the weather. But he’s showing you his watch. Time is short. He isn’t going to put a lot of his time into you disappointing him. You can see it in his hand. He’s already getting antsy.

She, on the other hand, is sending mixed messages. The classic closed-arm pose: she’s not interested, shining through his semitransparent arm. But also there’s that lovely and warm smile. She won’t put up with it, but she cares about you anyway.

That is Harmon and Grace Dobson. Harmon founded Whataburger. He married Grace in 1955, somewhere between store number five and 20. He died in a plane crash in the 60s. Grace ran the place until the early nineties. She passed it along to her son, who broke the 500-store mark. Grace died in 2005 after building an empire and raising three children. No wonder she could hit that pose.

I saw that last night and thought it was an interesting setting, even without any context. The young man and the older woman. It all makes sense now, except for Harmon’s see-through arm. I’ve seen a few photographs of him, and he has one of those mugs that just fits right into the time, whenever it is, 1950s, Somewhere, Texas. He’d been a bush pilot, a diamond courier, a car salesman and a wildcatter. No wonder he looks like he’s in a hurry. Just leaning here for a moment.

Whereas, Grace, even when she stepped down from the day-to-day was still seen with reverence. The company execs didn’t like to boast about what their success for fear of her hearing. Just leaning here for forever.

Things to read … because reading stays with you forever.

This guy is racing in Chattanooga this weekend, My Finish Line Road: Winning the Battle in Chattanooga:

Like so many others, I was hooked. I progressed to longer distances and in 2012, signed up to complete my first IRONMAN—IRONMAN Arizona. Training was going well and my wife and I welcomed our third child (our first girl) that July. Three weeks later, after a morning workout, I began having severe abdominal pain and was rushed to the hospital. Scar tissue from my previous surgery had wrapped around my small intestine and twisted it over on itself. I was rushed into emergency surgery. My IRONMAN dream was over—for a time.

Recovering from surgery brought some dark days. I had doubts about whether I could do an IRONMAN with this disease, and if I even wanted to try again. This was the first time I had ever truly felt beaten by the disease. As I was feeling sorry for myself, Hurricane Sandy threw me a curveball and forced me out of my funk. The building that housed my dental business was inundated with over eight feet of water. Everything was destroyed. The next few months were a blur as I healed from surgery while trying to rebuild my business. I had no time to feel sorry for myself.

You read those things and you realize how amazing people are, and how much of everything is just a mental exercise.

This is a personal story about a SR-71 coming apart at more than three times the speed of sound. I’m just going to excerpt one quote, because that should be enough to get you to read the whole thing, Bill Weaver Mach 3+ Blackbird Breakup:

I couldn’t help but think how ironic it would be to have survived one disaster only to be done in by the helicopter that had come to my rescue.

Talk about your bad days.

Starting to hear more about this now, Save the press from the White House censors:

So we were uneasy to learn that some reporters have been pressured to alter their reports by the publisher, aka the White House. While some of the emendations and deletions (a presidential aide’s swoon, a politically charged Obama joke) might seem frivolous, what’s at issue here is precedent. This represents the peak of a slippery slope we don’t want to go down. And that’s why we think it’s time to for the reporters to begin putting out their own pool reports.

The practice of the White House disseminating the reports dates back to the paper era, when reporters obtained poolers’ notes from copies that White House press assistants placed in bins in the White House press room. Today’s technology offers an opportunity to liberate the pool reports.

This is pretty interesting, but it makes you think “Southern” has changed. That’s good in a lot of ways, but it ain’t Ransom or Warren or Tate, The Southernness of being: Nationally recognized poet wrestled with the legacy of civil rights violence:

For the boy, the poetry first showed up in the trees behind his family’s home in Gadsden. The words came to him through the sunlight in the loblollies, with the swallowtails in the pines — in the Alabama he knew and loved on that Etowah-Calhoun county line.

For the man, the poems appeared in the names on a stone outside the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery. These words came to him through the stories of 39 men, women and children, martyrs of the civil rights era — people Jake Adam York never knew, who died in an Alabama he didn’t understand.

“He used his poetry to take on the beauty and the responsibility of being Southern,” said his mother, Linda York.

Taken too soon, York died at 40 in 2012. He liked LL Cool J and Run DMC, it says. But who didn’t? Allen Tate would have loved LL.

Kidding. Tate wouldn’t have understood, or cared for LL Cool J at all. But he did, during his third marriage, have an affair with a student of his, a nun. Wikipedia says a citation is needed for that, but even if it is wrong that’s a story dying for a lyric …

His first, and second, wife, was novelist Caroline Gordon, who was a great Southern writer. She died in 1981 in Mexico. Maybe that means she passed through Texas. Maybe she enjoyed Whataburger.

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15
Sep 14

The man on the wall has no comment

It occurred to me that I’ve never noticed the bas-reliefs of any other governors in Alabama. Perhaps I’m overlooking them or am drawing a mental blank. Maybe this is a lasting affection for George Wallace. Perhaps part of it is that George Wallace was governor for so long, from 1963 to 1967 and then from 1971 until 1979 and again from 1983 to 1987.

Here he’s standing in front of the restroom door:

That rest area was built during the 1970s. Maybe it was a boom period.

A bit ambitious, wouldn’t you think?

I had a nice, easy 30-mile ride yesterday. It should have been longer. I climbed more than 1,200 feet and rode for under two hours. I topped out at 37.7 miles per hour. Twenty percent of the ride was over 20 miles per hour. (Which is slow for most, but pretty nice for me.) Most importantly, it didn’t all fall apart in the last few minutes. It reminds me that I should ride more.

Things to read … to remind you that I should ride more.

I’m always circumspect about a small thing, like a small sport, playing big social roles. But we all have our roles to play and we all have our spheres of influence, I suppose … Biking Toward Women’s Rights in Afghanistan:

The Women’s National Cycling Team of Afghanistan is only a few years old. Its 10 members, most between the ages of 17 and 22, have yet to finish a race. But they are determined to persevere in their chosen sport despite multiple barriers, and are aiming to ride in the 2020 Olympics.

Men driving by insult them. Boys along the road throw rocks at them. Sometimes they don’t have enough money to buy adequate food to fuel their rides. Every day, they are reminded that it is taboo in Afghan society for a woman to get on a bicycle. And still they ride.

“They tell us that it is not our right to ride our bikes in the streets and such,” says Marjan Sidiqqi, one of the young women on the team. “We tell them that this is our right and that they are taking our right away. Then we speed off.”

[…]

Galpin says that for the generation of girls coming of age in a post-Taliban Afghanistan, bicycling is another manifestation of the freedom to be an educated person in the society. “Young women who are in university and high school, young women who are educated, their families have promoted that and helped that happen,” she says. “These young women look at it very cut and dry: ‘My brother can ride a bike, why can’t I?’ They’re cognizant that they have this right.”

“We cannot become a hero by sitting at home,” she said.

This is called neuroplasticity, or the amazing things the human body can do … An adult woman was found to be missing her cerebellum:

So essentially, it took less than a decade of life for the rest of her brain to pick up the missing cerebellum’s slack. The fact that the patient is alive and thriving is incredible. This is only the ninth time that doctors have found someone to be missing a whole cerebellum, and most of the others have only been discovered after their early deaths.

She was given a photograph after 9/11. Every year at the anniversary she’s tried to find the people in the picture. This year, the mystery was solved … Mystery Solved: The People in the 9/11 Wedding Photo

I saw the first part of this story yesterday in the paper, and it is worth reading today … Beulah’s David Eastridge battling back from life-threatening accident:

Balance has been one of the toughest parts for David since the traumatic brain injury. His depth perception in his left eye is still affected, which in turn makes it difficult to maintain balance at times. It’s why he wears that soft helmet whenever he does anything that requires movement.

He climbs stairs, but only to show off. Sutlive has shifted focus away from that because of the progress David has made. Now
they spend time on the treadmill. David has to hold the railings, but he gradually begins to pick up the pace.

Sutlive asks him: “What’s the fastest you can go?”

“Let’s show them,” David enthusiastically responds.

He reaches 3.1 mph on a slight grade; a brisk jog. Five weeks earlier, he couldn’t walk on his own.

Tough kid, that.

If you watched the Georgia game this weekend you might have noticed when the announcers mentioned this story. It is a pretty nice, quick little news package:

And, finally, here’s a little feature on Birmingham’s historic Rickwood Field … Recapturing a Game and Days Gone By. The story is told through the eyes of the author’s 77-year-old mother-in-law and is understandably precious.

If you like baseball history, I did a decent podcast about Rickwood several years ago. I’ve also sold photos of the nation’s oldest active baseball part to ESPN.

The good old days. Today was different than all of that. All of my days are though, that was eight years ago, after all. Instead of interviewing David Brewer, I was discussing tips of interviewing with students in a classroom.

I always find myself bringing up the time I was asked to interview the congressman who’s best hunting dog had just died, or the times I annoyed governors, or that a newly elected (and still sitting) senator tried to insult me. Grieving interviews, funny interviews, boring interviews, the ones where you know the person is lying to you, and all of the different ways to get answers from your sources. Good stuff, good times.

I wonder what it was like to interview George Wallace. (He died in 1998, but I met his son once, in passing.) Maybe I should stop back by that bas-relief.