Things I will miss about Alabama

We left Alabama.

Wife got a job back up north. In New Jersey, outside of Atlantic City.

I wasn't ready to leave yet. It was too soon. I was only barely just beginning to incorporate the pace of life into my own rhythms, make them a real part of me. I was only just beginning to get a sense of how I could incorporate the politics of the place into my own political philosophy, rationalize those things that made no sense to me by examining them from whence they came. Like the statute of Nathan Bedford Forrest in the Selma Cemetery. The incongruity of just that. Right there. And how the majority of the people who still live in Alabama try to rise above their past, while honoring it at the same time.

It was starting to change me. And I welcomed it.

And I miss it, terribly.

Even though I stuck out like a sore thumb.

Here are the top 10 things (in no particular order) I'll miss about Alabama

1. The 200 acres of farmland in Macon County that I camped on, hunted on, and moved cows on, and that brought me peace and quiet so many times
2. The pine trees swinging in the wind
3. The sound of the whippoorwill on spring and fall nights
4. The color of the sunshine, so bright
5. The Auburn family
6. The smell of football on fall Saturdays in the South
7. The friendliness of strangers
8. The waves of people in cars driving through the neighborhood
9. $17 golf
10. The friends we made there

This blog is now finished.

"Exactly what your father told me not to"

That was my response to the question: "What'd you get?"

The thing being referred to? The first deer I ever killed.

I had decided several months ago that I wanted to go hunting. 3 reasons for this:

1. I've become pretty close with 2 guys in my nieghborhood, both of whom hunt. A little male bonding in the woods is good.
2. I have acquired a taste for venison since we moved here.
3. I am a fan of Michael Pollan and the real food movement. We're members of our local CSA, we don't eat anything that has over 5 ingredients listed on the label, and the farther we can check out of the industrial food complex the better. 

Hence, going deer hunting makes sense to me. It's another Southern experience to write about.

On Dothan and Alligators

Look at that thing! It's huge! (That's what she said....HEE-YOOOO!!!)

We've never been to South Alabama before. Our neighbors who used to live here in Auburn moved back home to Dothan two months ago, and we decided to visit them.

We were told we were going to go fishing, and that we'd be hunting an alligator.

Wait, I'm sorry....A what?

The Auburn Football Family

Today we're gonna see Auburn (hopefully) kick some LSU Tiger butt. Because the wife is new faculty and was hired in the spring, we weren't able to get on the faculty ticket list. And, because of other commitments (notably Kentucky Colonel Day at Churchill Downs), this is the last game we'll be able to attend this season. (And yes, both the wife and I are colonels. Don't ask how.)

Because we don't know our situation for next year, this could actually be the last game we see for awhile. And I have to say, while I didn't enjoy football in high school or college, I am surprised by how much of a college football convert I have become.

I didn't get it before. I didn't understand that in places like the rural South, your college team is all you have. You don't have professional sports teams readily nearby (name a top tier professional sports team in Mississippi or Alabama. Go ahead. I'll wait.), so there is nothing of that sort to identify with. In Connecticut, you were either a Yankee fan or a Red Sox fan. College football? I don't think so. Patriots, Jets, or Giants. Or if you lived in upstate NY, the Bills (shudder).

But down here, all you have is your school. The school you may have gone to, or not (from what I understand, the vast majority of 'bama fans never went there. Infer what you will about the level of class)And it's the place you stay loyal to because, despite the vast sums of $ that are available to teams in the BCS system, they, unlike professional sports teams, aren't going to leave your town. They are a part of the community. They are loyal to the alumni, faculty, students, and fans who flock to the campus every Saturday (regardless of where the team is playing. Auburn travels well. Nebraska and Clemson as well), and stake out there spots, and welcome other fans (who support their team or not) in an open, friendly, gregarious nature. The college isn't the Yankees or the Red Sox, able to shell out over $200 million a year in salaries in an openly disgusting manner in the middle of the recession while raping working families for $50/tix to seat in the nosebleeds. (An aside, sometimes the Yankees make it really hard to root for them.) And yes, while some of the tickets aren't cheap, there really isn't anything like being in a stadium with 85,000 other people.

Here at Auburn, the senior level staff and those associated with the school talk about the Auburn family, how everyone is welcome and how we all look out for one another. And despite being the Yankee I am, I have felt welcome from the very moment we crossed the state line 3.5 months ago. In a strange way, those 85,000 people have become my family. And regardless of how long we stay, (or don't) I will always be an Auburn Tiger.

War Eagle

Roundup of interesting facts I've learned so far

In no particular order:

1. Armadillos carry leprosy. Ewww.
2. Deer sausage is really, really, really good.
3. Collard greens are good in a soup, but fricking nasty when they're cooked normally. (Boiled, then simmered with a ham hock for what seems like forever. Verdict? Still gross.)
4. It seems we are the only people in the neighborhood to sleep with their windows open at night. This seems weird to me.
5. I know I will be going hunting for deer this fall / winter.
6. I know that if I actually do kill a deer, I will cry. Maybe not right then and there, but eventually.
7. I am ok with the above two items. I actually think this is healthy. We've been removed from our food sources for too long.
8. The only way to get rid of an armadillo is to either remove its food source, or kill it.
9. The landlord opted for option #1.
10. Armadillos are gross. And they grunt.
11. The redneck version of cow-tipping is armadillo kicking. Because they can't see well, you approach them from behind and commence launching. Be prepared for your foot to hurt due to their hard shells.
12. I have not participated in either cow-tipping or armadillo kicking.
13. 11am kick-offs make a football game family day at the stadium. All the kiddies are there.
14. Booing is very much frowned upon at said stadium. Especially in front of kids. I did not know this.  :-/
15. Additionally, when you say things like, "Hey Ref! Get off your knees, you're blowing the game!" you get frowned at.

So, them's it so far

In the Country

Another Saturday, another day of adventure and new experiences. This time it was a next door neighbor's piece of land south of Tuskegee where we played with some horses, tried to catch cat fish, and looked at some cows.

The drive through Tuskegee was extremely pleasant. Our next door neighbor and his wife had grown up in the general vicinity and shared a lot of nice tidbits about the area, the way people live, etc. In fact, they pointed out two houses, both opposite one another, that were the exact same. Huh, why's that?, I wondered. Well, it turns out that the homes were both built by the same man. The first home was built for he and his wife to live in, and the second home was built to satisfy a stipulation of his divorce from the same woman that he build her a home that was its exact mirror. Hence, two houses, opposite side of the street, exact mirrors of one another. Spooky.

The first stop of the day was the hay field to check on the bailing process which my friend and his pops had worked on earlier in the week. Not too much progress had been made, but form what I could understand, there were some mechanical issues involving sprockets, and flanges, and hinges, etc.

And here's where my yankee-ness comes into play. We had stopped at a nearby farmer's house who had helped with the cutting and the bailing. This man was my father's age, and had been raising beef cows his entire life. And much like the time I was in Maine and spoke to a Maine fisherman and had a really hard time understanding what he said, I had an equally hard time understanding just wtf this guy was saying. I've noticed that there is bit of a lag time between what people down here say to me, me mentally filtering out the accent, and then me fully comprehending what they've said.

We went over to the barn and took the opportunity to put our neighbor's 5 y/o on a horse and take a spin. I think she had a lot of fun

The horse, maybe not so much.

Just kidding.

After this we took a quick spin over to the lake where the cows were resting, and we did some fishing. MMMMM.....Black Angus

Hey, you in the back. I am going to eat you eventually!

Last, but not least, it was time to take the little one in the tractor. Again, it looks like she had a great time.

BBQ in Alabama

Place: Birmingham, AL. about 2 hrs from Auburn, AL.

Event: Stoking the Fire BBQ Festival

Otherwise known as, Eat the Pig, Stuff your Face, I Love Butt, etc.(I'm just kidding. Those aren't the alternate names) But some teams did have some really funny names. case in point: Butt Rubbers, whose motto was, "Keep it Wet, and Do it Slow" Truer words have never been spoken. And while I didn't try the butt rubbers pork butt, the rest of the butt we did try, was very good indeed.

Interesting note before we move on, the pork "butt" is not actually the butt. The "butt" is the shoulder, while an actual pork butt is called the hock, as in ham hock. Now that we've gotten that out of the way, let's move on.

The event itself was held at Sloss Furnaces, a national historic landmark. I took a picture of the landmark sign, here: The story goes, from I could gather, was that the furnaces intersected 2 rail lines, making it a pretty logical place to set up and make very heavy things made out of metal so that transporting them long distances wasn't difficult. And while the vast majority of the operation was no longer working, you could tell the furnaces were impressive by their sheer size and scope, as evidenced in the pictures below:

This one doesn't do nearly as much justice to the "largeness" as the one below.





























See what I mean? This photo, from the opposite side of the structure, gives a little bit better idea of how big the place it is.


Anyway, the comp- etition has four categories: chicken, ribs, butt, and people's choice. The others are self explanatory, but people's choice refers to Saturday afternoon when the gates to the festival open up for the vast majority of people to roll in and taste the pork bbq (made out of the butts), that the teams have been smoking for the past few days. You then vote for your favorites. The results, for most of the teams, were delicious.

Post bbq, slightly buzzed stoopid faces

We met up with the college roommate of our next door neighbor here in Auburn, and he treated us to a few ribs, which were fantastic, and a couple of nice cold, high gravity beers. Sipping beer and eating ribs and bbq (by the way, if you are eating shredded, or pulled, or chipped pork with bbq sauce, you are eating bbq specifically. If you are eating ribs, or brisket, or anything else "bbq", you are eating bbq generally. Got it? Yeah, I was confused, too.) Man, it was good, as evidence by our silly faces. -->

We walked around some more, trying bbq, sipping beer, and then headed over to the stage where the organizers announced the winners of the competition. And because part of the furnaces are still working, the prizes were cast in iron right on the site, which I thought was pretty cool

There were also some pretty funny "sculptures" that the teams had set up, as evidenced here (ewwwh), and below

Good times were had by all, and while our friend's friend's team didn't win, these people know how to cook pork. God, I am glad I am not Jewish or Muslim.

Got my riding group!

Wednesday nights and Saturday mornings, brought to you by the good people of East Alabama Cycling Club!

Wednesday nights start @ 5:30 and are usually around 25-30 miles of beautiful rolling hills around Auburn. We "roll" at about 18-20 mph, so its a nice 2 hr ride that isn't too stressful or hard. Given that I ride to the meeting place, it adds a few more miles, making the total (last night's, at least) to be 35 miles. This is about as much as I can do in one go before I have to eat something, so dinner is always welcome when I get home.

Saturday's ride begins at 7:30 am, breaks up into about 4 different groups (based on riding ability and length), and always ends in breakfast. (Yay!). This ride is much more social and significantly larger than the Wednesday night group, as well as accommodates riders of all abilities.

To be honest, this is my first real riding group. I didn't ride in a group in NYC because if you didn't have a high-end ride and weren't snooty, they didn't want anything to do with you. I didn't group ride in CT because I just didn't get my shit together. But I really like riding in a group. It gives you people to talk to, safety, and most importantly, people to draft. Everyone goes faster when riding in a group.

Also, I get to essentially "tour" my new area by riding around the neighborhoods. I've read before that riding one's bike around a new town is a great way to go sightseeing. And experiencing it for the first time here in Auburn, I can say their right.

I am digging the riding group and the people in it. Hope I can make some friends out of it.

Late night Mud-riding

I was thinking I really should have pictures for this post, but I don't think they would capture the thrill of barreling down a dirt road in the middle of the night. How do you express the joy of riding a roller coaster to someone through words or pictures? It somehow doesn't do the experience justice, and I certainly want to give the proper props to this.

It's late. It's the middle of the night. You're in Alabama, and there's several acres of woods with a"road" cleared out through them, leading to a pond in the middle. The road is the red clay of the South, not gravel or asphalt. Now, you've gone off-roading before, when you were growing up, living in Connecticut. But it somehow doesn't live up to what you think you are about to do, because, let's face it: You're a stranger in a strange country, and you've placed blind faith in a person you've just met because they told you to get in the truck and not to ask questions. You're going for a ride, and that's about all you know.

You drive down the road, and turn off, facing the "road" that goes straight into the woods. The driver puts the peddle to the metal and away you go, flying torwards trees before the wheel is turned and you're faced with another set, the headlights illuminating just what's directly in front of you and nothing else. You hit the clearing where the pond is, stop, pile out of the truck and look up at the moon, and all the stars, and listen to the silence, something you haven't heard in a long time because of the years you've spent living in New York City, or Bridgeport, CT, the drone of I-95 constantly in the background.

And it's here that you thank yourself for trusting people, for believing that people are inherently good, and that you've missed the woods, the stars, and the silence.

T minus 1 week and counting

Yowzer. It's really here. I cannot believe it. It's really here.

This is the last week I am here at the office and I have a boatload of stuff to get ready before we ship out. Additionally, people are really starting to demand our time and attention, and we still have a lot of packing to do (read, all packing because we haven't done any yet. Why are waiting? I don't know.)

I also am starting to feel the absolute reality of things. The last time I visited my grandfather in Jersey was a week and a half ago. When we left I told him we would see him again at Christmas. I saw both doubt and hope in his eyes; hope that he would make it to Christmas, and doubt that he would. I am making another trip to see him tomorrow after work for what I hope won't be the last time I see him.

We saw my parents for the last time before we move this past weekend. That was a little tough. When we were leaving my mother, crying and putting on a brave face, said "This is nothing. We lived in Singapore and you were here." I asked, "So, why are you crying?" She replied, "Because your father is crying." To which he replied, "No I'm not. It's fricking hot out here. I am sweating!"

This is crunch time. This is the time to make lists, execute, cross it off and get shit done. I hope I don't falter on anything too major.

Countdown: 16 days

It's starting to get scary!

Not really scary, but I think you know what I mean. 3 months ago when the wife got the job, it was something that was going to happen, but one that I didn't have to deal with immediately. Now, it's right around the corner.

Friends and coworkers are starting to ask if I am nervous or excited. Neighbors are saying things like, "Hope you like this weather, 'cause its gonna be a lot hotter down there!" (Jeez, thanks. Sheesh) And we are having going-away parties thrown for us. We had our first one Sunday, and as a pre-moving father-son bonding time / moment, I joined my father for a round of golf on Friday, followed by a "here's where everything is in case I die while you're in Alabama" talk. That was fun.

16 days of getting through work and worrying about packing. I just wish it here already so that we could be done with it, because I don't feel settled. And as a Leo, I need to feel "settled".

I'll just hang in there.