I hitched a ride with Charles this week and it was good for me to get out. We all need a break from normal routines every so often. This particular early morning it was foggy. We left the city and I thought you might like to ride along again. Last time was out to the dairy. This time we are heading west from our town of Dothan Alabama and so you can see what rural Southeast Alabama looks like.
When I was a child I grew up in the city of Memphis Tennessee. When I was a young teenager we moved from Memphis Tennessee to River Falls Alabama. I am very familiar with these roads in Southeast Alabama.
When we head west towards River Falls I feel like I am going home because it is mostly rural.
When I was a teen life was very simple.
As we travel along you can see that the farmers have been quite busy this time of year. They have been harvesting Peanuts and cotton. Some of the fields are already harvested and the soil is turned.
But there is still much cotton to pick.
There is a lot of farm land. We see cattle grazing and goats and chicken houses along the way.
When we moved to river falls we had a small plot of land to the side of our house. We had two horses and a cow that I named Charlie Brown.
I raised him from a babe and used a bucket with a nipple. Several times as he was very hungry he would nudge the bucket and give me a splash.
I had a a goat that followed me everywhere.
When I got my first car which was a tiny little car called a Hillman minx. I believe it was a German made Car. My Goat, Anna Bell rode with me in my car.
Life was slow back then. There was not much traffic on the roads.
As I got older a friend of mine and I went to Loango to visit some family and we took an old 1940s truck to the dump to take some trash. The truck broke down and we had to push it all the way back to the house. It was not funny at the time but we still laugh about it today.
We didn't expect things fast back then. I wish it was still like that.
I am glad that I grew up in three different worlds, the city, the small town and the country. I was able to experience the differences.
City life is too much for me, especially now. It is not a healthy life as far as I feel.
I try to make it as healthy as possible but pollution is all over. Here in these pictures it is open air and the foggy pictures are real fog, not pollution.
We have too much pavement in our world now. It causes too much heat and I feel that the water that runs off of must be toxic.
My Great Grandparents traveled by wagon on dirt roads. My Grandparents eloped on a mule.
When I was a child we had a cottage and we had neighbors close by in the woods and they still traveled by horse and wagon. They lived without electricity and cooked on a wood stove.
We really cannot say what the past was like because it all depended on where one lived. The big cities had modern things long before small towns and rural folks.
There was a stark difference when I lived in the city of Memphis and drove south to our grandparents. Today rural folks have become modern and have all the things that the city folks have other than the traffic and noise.
I only picked cotton a few times in my life. It can really mess up your finger tips if you don't wrap them up because you can get pricked reaching in to pull the cotton out.
I could not get a good picture here above but there were hills behind those trees of cotton.
Without our farmers we would be in big trouble.
This is the pea river we are crossing.
We are just outside of Opp Alabama.
I have experienced many things in my life. Washing clothes by hand because I did not have a washing machine. Hanging clothes to dry on the line because that was the only way to dry the clothes. Then having a machine and a dryer. Then going back to washing by hand and using the clothesline.
I have used a hand pump and toted water which is not easy.
Tasted water from an artesian well.
I have lived through times of duck and cover bomb drills and here we are back again with similar threats.
We wore garter belts to hold up stockings because there was no such thing as pantyhose. Now they are coming back because they are considered sexy, imagine that.
Apple pies were frequently sitting on a open window ledge cooling.
Pecan pies were very common in southeast Alabama because Pecan trees are all over this area and very common to see rural or city.
I have lived with no telephone, to a party line phone, to a time now where people are phone obsessed. I prefer the no phone life and writing and mailing letters where we don't get instant news. Instant news is just too stressful.
We can live with so much less things, most things we have today are just not truly necessary. We are just made to believe we need these things we have today.
This particular day I put the camera away and we went to the cemetery to visit my mothers grave and I changed out her flowers in the small town of river falls.
We are now on our way back home.
Now this photo above bothers me. This is a chicken house. All this land and those chickens never get to come out.
They could be moved around on this land. They could be fertilizing it as they graze. Move them to another spot and keep rotating. I have a problem with this.
This is a very old store. They have changed it up now. When I was younger and this store was being run as a mercantile it was a really special place to go. the old wood floors and screen door. The goods were kept on the walls. There used to be signs all over the sides of the building. I guess they sold them.
Life is always changing, we only have our memories of the past so we need to make them good.
I hope God has a special place for me in heaven that has a beautiful view and wind, oh do I love the wind. I love to drive down to the gulf of Mexico and stand with my feet in the sand at the edge of the water and feel the wind.
We need to do the things that we enjoy and most often it is something very simple.
Southeast Alabama has quite a few hills but no mountains.
We are getting close to home now. I hope you enjoyed the ride. Grandma Donna
