Say you find yourself down South. Here, in fact:
So kind of them to remind you where you are. In case you’d forgotten.
What is a brother to do in such a strange and wondrous land?
Why, go and see the giant metal butt, of course!
And if titanic steel gluteii aren’t your thing you can always go to the Civil Rights Center, gaze solemnly upon the 16th St Baptist Church and try to ignore the gentleman (just out of frame to the right) discussing oh-so-important things with a colleague with his trousers dropped disturbingly around his ankles.
Strange and interesting town, Birmingham. Deeply and frighteningly entertaining.
And then it was off to Nashville. I swear, I damned near wept when I crossed the Tennessee line. I had to stop and kiss the sweet southern soil. And there’s a For Rent sign in front of my old apartment building. I was already contemplating my farewell note – “Sell the house! Keep the stuff! I’m never coming back!” I miss old Nashvegas.
I spent my time revisiting old haunts and doing some of the summer time things I didn’t do in my first go-round because I missed the summer. Things like watching a Nashville Sounds game. I could truly become a minor-league baseball fan. Cheap and good seats, decent baseball – if you excuse the truly boring pitching – beer and fireworks! And how can you not love a ballpark built down the slope from a Civil War era fort and boasting such a bodacious scoreboard?
And replete with ads for booze?
Part of any Nashville trip involves a pilgrimage to Franklin, TN. This used to be a Pizza Hut before the city bought it and brought it down on the anniversary of the battle. I bet Domino’s appreciates the lack of competition.
My other pilgrimage site is to the two monuments to the Battle of Nashville. The old one, hidden in a weedy field behind an overgrown chain link fence, blows my mind. It’s got such an Ozymandias feel to it. “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone . . .”
Somewhere during the trip I discovered how to take photos in black and white. If I were a more ignorant man I’d instantly assume I was an artist. Since I know that I’m not, I’ll keep my stupefyingly huge ego in check. Still, I think this is a nifty shot:
And there’s the Mother Church of Country Music. A righteous place to see a show, or even the Opry. And I always loved the building in the background. Not so fond of the company it contains, however.
That was my trip. Can’t wait to go back. Can’t, in fact, be sure I don’t want to go back semi-permanently now or later. It’s a hell of a town. Summed up in my final artistic endeavour: the honky-tonk big city contemplating past and future.
