|
The county’s historic markers are still out there. I’m still out there, pedaling around to see them and take pictures, just because they are there and I can do it. There are just six or seven more, after today’s pair.
This tree is important. Why is this tree important? You will find out here.
There are two buildings here. This one is where the historic event happen. The second is the building named after one of the players in this part of the story. Click here to find out all about it.
I’m working on wrapping up a project I’ve been undertaking, more off than on, for several years. I’ve been riding my bike all over the county to photograph the markers and the places they document. The ones I’m showing you today are all from the same place. So important is this location, there are three markers within view of one another.
Three signs in all, six sides of information, generations of families and leaders and history. Interesting how cemeteries are both the beginning and end of history.
You can see the other sides to these signs, and the sacred grounds they mark, here.
I have to finish this project up and, so, for the next several weeks I’ll be sneaking in a few posts that will shoot you over to my historic marker page. The concept there is pretty straightforward. I’ve been riding my bike all over the county to photograph the markers and the places they document. This has been an on-again-off-again project for years. Time to wrap it up. Here are two that will get us a bit closer to doing just that.
This is a superlative sign. It is the most difficult one in the county to get to. It was one of the hardest ones to find. Being from 1954 it is perhaps the oldest of the bunch. It has perhaps the widest ranging actual historical significance. And there’s less at this physical location than any other marker in the county. There’s absolutely nothing there:
You can see the other side, and the locale.
After France, late in the Colonial period gave all of this region to Britain surveyors marked the boundaries including this one in south Smiths Station. This line goes all the way across at least two states. I wonder if there are other signs elsewhere on this line.
Also, 18th century surveyor still sounds like an impossibly difficult job.
I had a professor once who explained that the railway switch that was located just down from this sign is why all of this is here. And then he’d walk you through a few decades of railway history and it made sense. And now the town which grew beside the railroad became a city and then a blue collar town and then it dried up and now it is making a comeback. And that’s about 100 years of history.
Click here to see the other side of the sign and a lot of the locale.
Sometimes angels use parachutes:
And sometimes angels are smaller than you’d imagine they should be: Auburn heart transplant recipient meets donor family, families encourage community to donate life.
You should definitely look up: Spies in the skies
And look back: Meet the Forgotten ‘Rocket Girls’ Who Helped NASA Reach the Stars.
And all around: How to Take Better Street Photographs by Staying Inconspicuous.
Just look.
There are whole chunks of things I don’t know about. That’s only my fault. So I try, on some of my visits, to fill in the gaps.
For instance, these are my grandmother’s parents:
That’s a familiar picture, though I don’t remember the two of them. Here’s a picture of them I don’t think I’ve ever seen before:
The boys in the background are my great-uncles. The years melt away, but the same mischief is just noticeable in the eyes you can see on the left margin of the shot. That’s a familiar look. They were old when I was young, but only in that way that adults are old to children. Their creeping up there in years now, of course, but you still see that in the eyes. To see them as ankle biters themselves is amusing.
This picture is a few years later than the previous one. This is my grandmother’s senior portrait:
Cute girl, right? She grew up in the narrowest wide spot in the road in a tucked away corner of northwest Alabama that it is still hard for most people to find. In her yearbook she quoted a first century Syrian, taken as a slave to Italy where he won the favor of his master, who freed and educated him. Publilius Syrus became a writer and actor. The quote: “When we stop to think we often miss our opportunity.”
My grandmother was in the Glee Club and Future Homemakers of America.
Me and my grandmother today. Still a pretty lady:
This is my grandfather’s father. Never met him:
Back with the folks. Allie has been patiently waiting at the table for a treat.
