Whistlestop’s bbq warriors | sugar gets some good news | sweating it out in the valley
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September/October
features
14 In the Pits The best of the best duke it out at WhisteStop’s Rocket City BBQ competition. by sara wright covington photos by patrick hood and ben hood
48 Sugar’s Sweet Secret
Chicken Confidential
Finally, sugar gets some “powerfully” good press.
No’Ala Huntsville investigates a huge chicken conspiracy that might just be taking place in your neighborhood.
by allen tomlinson photos by patrick hood
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by allen tomlinson photos by abraham rowe and patrick hood
Dynamic Duo Terrance Brown and Tiffany Bostic-Brown have a story to sing.
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by allen tomlinson photos by shannon wells and patrick hood
56 Sweating It Out Fitness gets its own makeover with these creative exercise gurus. by sara wright covington photos by patrick hood
Cover photo by Patrick Hood
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no’ala huntsville advisory board Osie Adelfang ARC Design-Build, Inc. Lynne Berry HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology Sarah Brewer Click Photo Designs by Sarah Brewer Kimberly Casey Lowe Mill Arts & Entertainment Donna Castellano Historic Huntsville Foundation Aissa Castillo aislerchic.com Dan Halcomb Huntsville Symphony Orchestra Lauren McCaul deptofagraculture.com Guy McClure, Jr. Athens State University Tom Patterson knowhuntsville.com Dr. Holly Powe Calhoun Community College Olivia Reed Olivia Reed Photography Patrick Robbins Huntsville Hospital Lauren Tomasella Lauren Tomasella Photography Ashley Vaughn White Rabbit Studios/Vertical House Records Charles Vaughn Vaughn Lumber Company Andrew Wilmon Broadway Theatre League
editor’s letter « Allen Tomlinson
CAN YOU KEEP A SECRET? In this issue, we take a stab at investigative journalism and explore the seedy underworld of chickens living inside the city limits. These seemingly innocent birds are quietly roosting in your neighbors’ backyards, laying their delicious eggs, ridding their yards of pesky mosquitoes and house flies, and generally just looking adorable. But it’s illegal—harboring chickens inside the city limits is not allowed, although, to our city’s credit, it’s not high on the Crimestoppers list. We took our lives into our own hands and visited several families who just might have a few hens in the yard and who just might bribe the neighbors with eggs to help keep their secrets. We learned a lot about the ins and outs of chicken coopery, and hope our elected officials will take another look at whether this activity should be decriminalized. It was fun; we hope you enjoy it, too. It’s fall, and that means it’s harvest time. For that reason, much of this issue is devoted to food and exercise. Food appears in the form of the WhistleStop Rocket City BBQ competition; then, after you’ve eaten until you want to pop, we introduce you to some fitness coaches who can work it right off of you. And sugar, that much-reviled ingredient that helps make our clothes a little tighter, is actually not a bad thing at all, according to one Huntsville research and development firm who uses it to charge cell phones, among other things. Fascinating! One of the most popular issues we do here at No’Ala Huntsville is our “Heart and Soul” issue, in which we spotlight people in the Valley who are quietly doing great things to make this such a wonderful place to live. Got a person we should know about? Space in this issue is limited—there are lots more people doing good things than we would ever have room for—but we don’t know everyone, and we need your input. Please send names and a brief description of the work this person is doing to allen@ noalastudios.com. The issue will debut in the spring, but please do this while it’s on your mind! Football, beautiful weather, and the smell of good cooking are all in the air. Before you run off to the Big Game, make sure you stop by a local retailer to get everything you need. After all, if we support our local retailers, we’ll continue to have a wonderful selection of great things here in the Valley. ley. That’s a secret we don’t do need to keep!
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contents
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© Patrick Hood
everything else 8 10
No’Ala Huntsville is published six times annually No by No’Ala Studios PO Box 2530, Florence, AL 35630 P Phone: (800) 779-4222 | Fax: (256) 766-4106 Web: noalastudios.com
Calendar Selected Events for September/October 2015 15
Cryin’ Out Loud
Standard postage paid at Huntsville, AL. A one-year subscription is $19.95 for delivery in the United States. Sig Si ned d aarticles reflect only the views of the authors and do Signed no not necessarily reflect the views of the editors. Advertisers are solely responsible for the content of their advertisements.
“Sense Memory” by sara wright covington gton
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Market by sara wright covington gton hell photos by danny mitchell
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The Vine Bless Their Heartss “Sail On” by guy mcclure, jr.
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©2 2008-2015 No’Ala Studios, All rights reserved.
“Oyster Wines” by amy c. collins
Parting Shot
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2015 Volume 4: Issue 5 ••• Editor-in-Chief C. Allen Tomlinson Chief Operating Officer Matthew Liles Creative Director David Sims Advertising Director Heidi King Advertising Sales Kevin McDonald, Johnson Trent Features Manager Roy Hall Graphic Designer Rowan Finnegan Web Designer Justin Hall Editorial Assistant Tara Bullington Videographer Justin Argo Retail Product Manager Sara Wright Covington Proofreader Carole Maynard ••• Contributing Writers Amy C. Collins, Sara Wright Covington, Guy McClure, Jr., Allen Tomlinson ••• Contributing Photographers Ben Hood, Patrick Hood, Danny Mitchell, Dustin Timbrook, Shannon Wells •••
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Send all correspondence to All Tomlinson, Editor, at the postal address above, Allen or by e-mail to allen@noalastudios.com. Letters may be edited for space and style. To advertise, contact us at ((256) 766-4222, or sales@noalastudios.com. The editor ed will provide writer’s guidelines upon request. Pros Prospective authors should not submit unsolicited manuscripts; please query the editor first.
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calendar
Thursday, September 3 – Thursday, October 22 (Thursdays Only) Biergarten Stein and Dine Enjoy a festive atmosphere with imported and domestic beers and German wine. It’s family friendly, and leashed dogs are welcome. Rain or shine. 4:30pm-7:30pm; Free, Food and beverages available for purchase; U.S. Space & Rocket Center, One Tranquility Base, Saturn V Hall; rocketcenter.com Friday, September 11 – Sunday, September 13 and Thurs, September 17 – Sunday, September 20 The Philadelphia Story A society weekly sends a reporter to cover the nuptials of a privileged young woman and her snobby fiancé, only to find the bride-to-be more interested in the reporter than her intended. Thurs-Sat, 7:30pm and Sun 2:00pm; Adults $18, Seniors, Students, Active Duty Military $16; Von Braun Center Playhouse; (256) 536-0807; yourseatiswaiting.org Friday, September 18 England: A Sea Symphony The Huntsville Symphony Orchestra is joined by the amazing Tiffany Bostic-Brown, Terrance Brown, and the Huntsville Community Chorus for an outstanding launch of the 61st season. Benjamin Britten’s opera, Peter Grimes, tells the story of an English fisherman, and Vaughan Williams’s A Sea Symphony is based on Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. 7:30pm; Admission Charged; Mark C. Smith Concert Hall, VBC; (256) 539-4818; hso.org Friday, September 25 – Sunday, September 27 The River Clay Arts Festival Downtown Decatur’s River Clay Fine Arts Festival features a juried exhibition of ceramics, digital and electronic art, drawing, fiber art, glass, jewelry, metalwork, mixed media, painting, photography, printmaking, sculpture, woodwork, and more. A ticketed preview party Friday night introduces patrons and artists, with public events Sat and Sun. Sat 9:00am–5:00pm, Sun 10:00am–4:00pm; Free; Downtown Decatur; riverclay.org Friday, October 2 – Saturday, October 3 Tennessee Valley Old Time Fiddlers Convention 200 musicians compete in 18 different categories. A “fiddle-off ” between the top two challengers results in “Tennessee Valley Old Time Fiddle Champion.” Bring your lawn chairs and enjoy the outstanding music, 150 arts and crafts vendors, and delicious festival food. Fri 8:00am, Sat 7:30am; $10 per day, $15 both days, Free under 12; ASU, 300 North Beaty St; athens.edu/fiddlers Friday, October 30 Las Vegas: Halloween Magic Featuring Illusionist Michael Grandinetti Join the HSO for a family-friendly Halloween concert featuring master illusionist Michael Grandinetti, accompanied by performances of the haunting Night on Bald Mountain, the bewitching In the Hall of the Mountain King, exciting themes from the Harry Potter movies, and more. 7:30pm; Admission charged; Mark C. Smith Concert Hall, VBC; (256) 539-4818; hso.org
Opens September 23
Open the door to their future “Science Fiction, Science Future” is an interactive adventure that demonstrates such future technologies as robotics, holograms, augmented reality and invisibility.
News, classical music and more Call (256) 837-3400 or visit rocketcenter.com for more information.
88.7 FM Muscle Shoals • 100.7 FM Huntsville www.apr.org september/october | noalastudios.com |
This exhibition is created by Scitech Discovery Centre, Perth, Australia, and produced by Imagine Exhibitions Inc.
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cryin’ out loud » Sara Wright Covington Eventually my sense of smell returned. It was gradually at first, and so slight that I often wondered if the faint aromas I began to notice were real or just manifestations of my imagination.
SENSE MEMORY When I was three, my doting, stay-at-home mother attempted to socialize me by enrolling me in a one morning a week mother’s morning out program at Calvary Baptist Church in Tuscumbia. Aside from the stories I’ve been told over the years of the traumatization—it was traumatic for my mother, not me—I can’t say I remember much about it. I was the typical introverted child—hyper aware of any change in my environment, hysterical at the thought of being thrust into situations where I might be forced to interact with people I didn’t know, and super clingy to my parents. And all except for the later (I eventually willingly moved out of my parents’ house) I can’t really say that I’ve changed all that much since then. Many years after my first classroom experience, I went back to that same church to pick up my nephew who was enrolled in the exact same daycare program. As soon as I walked through the glass doors of the building and that warm rush of daycare-air engulfed my lungs, it all came flooding back to me: the peach cobbler and paste, the soggy toast squares and juice, and the chilly stale air wafting in from a giant, dark room filled with cots for napping. All at once, I remembered what it was to be three years old again, sitting in the director’s office while she called my mother to remind her she had forgotten my swimsuit for the wading pool on that particularly hot summer day. Instead of a suit, I made do with some spare shorts and a T-shirt they scrounged up for me and I waded happily into the pool, splashing until my fingers and toes were prune-ish and my cheeks were stinging from the sun—I’m pretty sure sunscreen had not become all the rage yet in 1983. I remembered the details of it all so vividly, although I had not thought back on that day since then—nor was I even consciously aware it had ever happened—before the smell of it rushed back into my lungs again many, many years later. I remembered that it was a good day, and I called my mother immediately to tell her that she needn’t have worried about me. If you’ve read this column for any length of time, you have likely caught on that my family creeps in pretty much every time, and I’ve been known to whine about things I don’t appreciate until they are gone. This one is no different, as I am recalling my temporary loss of smell last summer when I had surgery to correct a deviated septum. The loss of the sense of smell post nasal surgery is common and usually temporary, but during those two months of this surgery side effect, I can’t tell you how many times I inhaled deeply to no avail, causing me panic when I realized what I was missing. I stood outside in my yard in inches of freshly fallen snow in February and vainly attempted to fully experience the cold. I sniffed my sweet newborn’s little head for hints of that sweet, fleeting new human smell and came up with nothing, immediately questioning the bargain I had made in exchange for a future free of chronic sinus infections.
The human brain is truly a majestic bit of machinery, and my predominantly creative, right-brained personality doesn’t typically dwell on the specifics of the mind’s intricate mechanics, as my eyes tend to glaze over at the mere mention of science. But even I found it interesting that according to scientists, our sense of smell is most powerfully linked to our memories. Incoming smells are processed by the olfactory bulb that connects to the brain’s limbic system, which is directly responsible for our emotions. The first time we smell something, our brain links it with the physical details of the time and place. When we smell that thing again, the link is already there, thus conjuring the past memory. So the smell of a place or thing can evoke memories that would have been otherwise buried beneath layers of time and space. In my post-surgery panic, I grasped for these smell memories. And as much as this completely made sense to me, when I started trying to actually recall what other scents have evoked long-lost memories for me, it was difficult for me to do. According to my research, this is likely because smells connect with the emotional part of our brain, unlike the memories of sight, touch, or sound which are more cognitive memories. I asked a few people to tell me what scents they linked with what memories throughout their lives, and I got everything from “summer tomatoes remind me of my neighbor’s garden,” to “salt water taff y reminds me of a trip to the Smokies when I was little.” My husband remembers the muddy smell of the river and summers spent at Joe Wheeler. And a dear friend of mine associates the sweet, grapey smell of a particular children’s boutique to a newborn gown she bought for her daughter. If you ask my mother what smells bring back memories for her, she will tell you without hesitation, “Geraniums. I’ve spent my whole life trying to grow them because they remind me of sleeping outside on my grandmother’s screened in porch in the summers I spent with her in Missouri as a little girl. I was so happy there, and I always just grieved when I had to leave her. The geraniums make me remember her.” Eventually my sense of smell returned. It was gradually at first, and so slight that I often wondered if the faint aromas I began to notice were real or just manifestations of my imagination. But to my relief, I began noticing the scents around me again more and more, once again unconsciously preserving little slivers of time I wouldn’t realize were significant till likely many years later, which is usually how the best stuff is.
september/october | noalastudios.com |
THE
FORTY-NINTH
TENNESSEE
VALLEY
ANNUAL OLD
TIME
FIDDLERS CONVENTION OCTOBER 2 AND 3, 2015
AT H E N S, A L A B A M A
WWW.ATHENS.EDU/FIDDLERS O N
T H E
C A M P U S
O F
H I S T O R I C
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scene
Phyllis Thornton and Lynn Lawler Sister Schubert Barnes and Betty Sims
Mary Kay Crawford and Doris Dean Mayor Ronnie Marks and Holly Holman
Shannon Hutton, Sam Hutton, Susan Anderson, and Cece Anderson
Myrna Burgreen and Ida Terry Dorothy Ross and Lelia Reid-Davis
Amy Gates Caldwell and Chris Paysinger © Photos by Guy McClure, Jr.
Above: The Donnell House Annual Meeting featuring Sister Schubert Barnes and Betty Sims
Below: Land Trust of North Alabama presents Muscle Shoals Revue
june , · athens
june , · concerts at three caves
Will McFarlane, Marie Lewey, and Kelvin Holley Fred and Leslie Ecklund, and Bill and Kelley Boykin
Jessie Mayne and Daniel Seigel David Milly and Wayne Chaney
Sally Warden, Marita Durham, and Charlotte Spear
“Microwave Dave” Gallaher, Phil Weaver, Marie Bostick, David Milly, and Dennis Keim
* Names for photos are provided by the organization or business featured.
Eileen and Mike Dalen
Todd and Margie Phillips, with Mary Grace and Mack Evans © Photos by Jeff White and Cathie Mayne
A JURIED FINE ART FESTIVAL IN HISTORIC DOWNTOWN DECATUR
S E P T E M BE R
26-27
Preview party & event details at
RIVERCLAY
september/october | noalastudios.com |
WHISTLESTOP’S BARBECUE BEST
©Patrick Hood
| noalastudios.com | september/october
text by sara wright covington » photos by patrick hood additional photos by ben hood
IT’S NO SECRET that in the South, barbecue is serious business. And Huntsville’s Rocket City BBQ competition, which is part of the annual WhistleStop Festival, is no exception. Although the festival is for a fantastic cause (all proceeds go to benefit the EarlyWorks Children’s Museum and local education programs), the intense competition is far from child’s play. Held every year around Huntsville’s historic depot, the early May air is warm, sweet, and smoky, with subtle hints of a host of many other essences that will make you stop to wriggle your nose and reach for a fork, or at least a napkin. But the secret is truly in the sauce, and if you are looking to pinpoint those exact flavors, you’ll be hard pressed to find any of these barbecue contenders who will give you much of anything but a sly grin and another taste, or maybe even a beer. As far as the secret to their smoke, that’s about all you’ll get out of many of them. And though some teams are here for the first time and others have been returning to the competition for years, all of these barbecue buffs have taken the art of smoking to a whole other level, and they take their tasks as very serious work. But the breezy, outdoor spring setting of the festival in Huntsville’s historic downtown does make their labor of love seem much less like work, and anyway, as Morgan Freeman once famously quoted in a film, “May is one damn fine month to be working outside.” Although the barbecue competition is not the entire focus of the festival, much time and effort is given each year to make sure the competition portion is conducted on the most professional level. Beth Goodwin, who is director of marketing for EarlyWorks, has been doing publicity for the event for several years and knows firsthand just how serious the barbecue competitors are. “They are very serious,” she says. “They come from all over and we have several teams that have been with us every single year.” The barbecue competition features two divisions, the Shade Tree competition for amateurs, and the Kansas City Barbecue Society Professional competition which is strictly for the pros. The main difference in the dividing categories of competition is that the professionals are required to submit entries in ALL categories, which include chicken, ribs, butt, and brisket, versus the
september/october | noalastudios.com |
THE SECRET’S IN THE SAUCE
©Ben Hood
Shade Tree entrants who can choose which meat categories they submit for judgement. “It is all sanctioned by the KCBS, because they already have a lot of rules in place,” says Goodwin. “We use VIP judges for Shade Tree but we still use KCBS guidelines. That way there is a uniform process for the judgment.” No gas or electric grills are allowed, and judges are asked to observe appearance, texture, and taste. Each entrant is then assigned an anonymous identification number and their barbecue samples are presented to the judges and given scores based off of those three key factors. After all plates are cleared and the last score card has been tallied, the winners are announced and trophies are presented in the evening. “It’s a fun way for us to do the fundraiser,” says Goodwin. “But what’s so neat and special about WhistleStop is that it is a true slice of what is Huntsville and Madison County. The county commissioner has a team, the mayor has a team, and the sheriff has a team. It’s just a great mix of community. It’s like a big family reunion.”
Electric and gas grills are not allowed during WhistleStop’s two day barbecue cook-off, but smokers line the grounds of Huntsville’s historic depot grounds by the hundreds.
©Patrick Hood
| noalastudios.com | september/october
Victor Russell and JD Reed prepare ribs for presentation.
©Patrick Hood
september/october | noalastudios.com |
THE SECRET’S IN THE SAUCE
The competition categories are for ribs, butt, brisket, and chicken. Shade Tree competitors may choose which categories to enter, while the professional level competitors are required to submit in all categories.
©Ben Hood
That sense of family that Goodwin mentioned seems to be the draw for most of the teams who keep coming back again each year to compete. And as much as the actual competition is all about the barbecue, for some teams the planning and preparation work that goes into each team’s setup is admittedly half the fun. For members of this year’s winning team from the Shade Tree division, Smoke ’Em If You Got ’Em, planning for this three-day event begins months in advance. Now in their fourth year of competing together, the team has taken their smoking setup to an art form, and they carve out a pretty elaborate setup in their annual spot, which is adjacent to a hackberry tree near the old Edith Ann’s Diner. This year alone it took six truckloads to create their cooking space, complete with a refrigerator, dishwasher, 11 coolers, and even a chandelier for an additional touch. “It’s your ability to tailgate outside of football season,” says team member Matt Howell. “We start looking forward to this and talking about it around November. Every year we discuss whether we change the rub, whether we change the sauce, or even if we should incorporate another tent with a chandelier. This is really big for us.”
©Patrick Hood
| noalastudios.com | september/october
©Patrick Hood
september/october | noalastudios.com |
THE SECRET’S IN THE SAUCE
Members of the winning Shade Tree Division Team, Smoke ’Em If You Got ’Em, from left to right: JD Reed, Ben Matthews, Matt Howell, Victor Russell, and Mark Fortner. (Not pictured: Quin Bludsworth and Jeff Maynor)
©Patrick Hood
Howell and his fellow teammates—Victor Russell, JD Reed, Quin Bludsworth, Ben Matthews, Jeff Maynor, and Mark Fortner—all practice individually and as a team throughout the year, which gives them a chance to both sharpen their skills and share some good times with each other and their families. “We just love having everybody together. It’s a great chance to get together with our families and let the kids play and just share some hospitality with each other,” he says. Huntsville resident Justin South and his team, Baby Got Fat Back, have been competing in the competition for several years in the KCBS Pro level, and South also agrees that the fellowship of the festival is what keeps him returning every year to contend with many other competitors he now calls close friends. “I’m a barbecue junkie,” he admits. “And for me it’s a matter of loving to cook barbecue. There are Saturdays I will fire up the smoker just to smell it, but the people you meet are still my favorite part of it all. Honestly, it’s the people that keep me coming back.” South and his teammates have made friends from all over the country, and he and his team even plan and travel with four or five other teams who attend other barbecue competi©Patrick Hood
| noalastudios.com | september/october
©Patrick Hood
september/october | noalastudios.com |
Whether a team is competing for the very first time, or they have been veteran competitors for many years, most participants agree that what makes WhistleStop special is the sense of camaraderie that comes from cooking in such close proximity with both new and old friends.
©Patrick Hood
tions throughout the year. “When you are sitting really close to people for two or three days whom you may not know well at first, by the time those two or three days are over, you have become close,” he says. “That’s the beauty of the camaraderie of it all. We meet local people and national guys. I’m now friends with the people who make the rubs that I use, and I get to compete with them. One of my good buddies was on Grill Masters just the other day.” Although many competitors are more closed mouthed about the secrets to their successes, South says his team often shares their own tricks and tips from their successful arn from fellow comrecipes, and in turn they are able to learn petitors. He insists they all want to seee each other do well, hat they have helped and if another team’s name is called that out in some way, they will be cheering just as loudly for that ull of quality people,” other team. “This competition is just full says South. “On the day of the competition ition there is a cook’s hat you won’t find in church. There is a camaraderie here that se-knit group and evmost competitions. This is really a close-knit eryone wants to see everyone else do well.”
| noalastudios.com | september/october
After the coolers are all packed up, the last truck load has been hauled off, and another year’s WhistleStop Festival is in the books, the smell of the smoke is the last thing to leave, lingering for a bit like the last guest reluctant to leave the party. Plans are already being made for the next year, and the leftovers, if there are any, have been divided up and sent home. As for the question of how this year’s winning Shade Tree team will up the ante for next year, the secret sauce may not be up for discussion, but Howell says it’s still the heart of the experience that keep them coming back every year. “It’s just the experience and it’s the fellowship. Everybody comes by your tent. You are guaranteed to make new friends. It really is the quintessential southern experience. And the bonus is that you really get to taste a lot of really amazing food.”
SATURDAY NOV. 21 4PM CENTRAL Channel 15
september/october | noalastudios.com |
text by allen tomlinson » photos by abraham rowe and patrick hood
| noal n noalastudios.com oal o allast as udiios os. ss.com c m | september/october co septem sep t ber tem ber/oc /oc o tob oc tober er
ŠAbraham Rowe
| noalastudios.com | september/october
IT’S A SUNNY DAY IN ROCKET CITY.
Too sunny. It’s not the temperature I mind; my borrowed car is air conditioned, and the windows are sealed tight. No, it’s the heat I can’t take. This particular errand calls for shadows—just enough light to get you there, but plenty of shade to cover your tracks. I adjust my sunglasses on the bridge of my nose and pull the ball cap a little lower on my head. I disappear as far into my Corinthian leather seat as it will allow. The voice on my phone tells me to bear left, and I do what I’m told. Squinting behind the sunglasses that protect my identity as well as my retinas, my sedan slinks on to a tree-lined street. My heart is racing; my palms are sweating. I tell myself a little white lie: “It’s going to be OK,” I whisper to myself. “These people don’t want trouble, and neither do I. Just get the facts—and get out.” The houses on this street are large, brick, and mostly two stories. The lawns are manicured, and probably not by the people who live here. Seems an unlikely spot for such clandestine operations, but at this point, nothing will surprise me. I want to get to know these lawbreakers and find out what motivates them, what led them down the (very nicely paved) road to the dark side. Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? I have a feeling I’m ‘bout to. “You have arrived at your destination,” says my phone, and I stop the car and peer at the house in front of me. It’s relatively new, with a wide front porch and rocking chairs; the flowers in the beds are pretty spectacular, and the grass is perfectly manicured. I note that there is a tall wooden fence at the back, probably built specially to hide all of the illegal activity that takes place back there. Hardly what I would expect, but maybe that’s the point? Make it look like a perfectly ordinary home in the middle of suburbia, and throw the officials off your tracks. I take a deep breath, turn off the engine, and open my door. I’ve hardly stepped outside the car when I hear a man say, “Welcome! Any trouble finding us?” It’s the homeowner, whom we will call “John” (all of the names in this story have been changed, to protect the lawbreakers and their neighbors). He’s surprisingly young, nicely dressed, and not shady looking at all. He walks toward me, hand extended; we shake hands.
©Abraham Rowe
september/october | noalastudios.com |
“Of course, I do it for the eggs, but it’s more than that. These chickens are beautiful—they are like works of art, and I add them to my garden the way I’d add flowers.” —“Brent”
©Abraham Rowe
| noalastudios.com | september/october
CHICKEN [CONFIDENTIAL]
©Abraham Rowe
Behind him, in the doorway, is his wife, whom we will call “Mary.” She’s beautiful, nicely dressed, with a broad smile. The children are at the community swimming pool for a couple of hours, so we have plenty of time to talk, she explains. Then, they welcome me in. I take a deep breath and step inside. Once the door has firmly shut behind me, I get right to business. “Ok, folks, I have to know. Where do you keep”—my voice drops to a whisper—“the chickens”? “The what?” says John. For a moment I panic, thinking I have come to the wrong house. Will they think I am crazy? Will they get mad if they think I am accusing them of harboring illegal fowl? If I am at the wrong house, will I give away the real John and Mary’s secret and expose them to the entire neighborhood? Barely five minutes into my assignment, and I may have messed everything up. I feel familiar red heat creeping up my neck, a sign that I am in trouble. We’re walking toward the back of the house, to the kitchen, where Mary pulls out a chair and offers me a seat.
“Ummm…the chickens?” I squawk. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I see what I have come to see. Through the kitchen window, I catch a glimpse of a dark grey bird with a top knot and beautiful golden flecks of color in her feathers. It’s the magnificent Merc, a Golden Lace Wyandotte breed, and she’s beautiful. I can’t help but stare. It’s a flood of relief, seeing this small clucking animal; I have found what I was looking for. I turn back to John and Mary. “Why do you do this?” I ask. “What made you decide to break the law and harbor chickens inside the city limits?” The couple smiles at each other and then at me. I get the feeling they have been asked this question before. Mary speaks first. “We do it for the eggs,” she says. “Store bought eggs have no taste, and the yolks we get from our chickens are deep orange and beautiful. We do it for the eggs.” And then, it’s as if the floodgates have opened. John and Mary pour out their hearts to me.
september/october | noalastudios.com |
IT STARTED OUT
innocently enough. “We had a friend who raised chicks,” says John, “and I have always loved eggs. Our friend hatched some chicks, so he gave me a couple and I brought them home.” “The children loved them, but we weren’t certain we were going to keep them. Our son was supposed to be studying for a science test the next day, and we got the definite feeling that he hadn’t prepared, so, in a classic parenting fail move, we offered a bribe. Make a hundred on your science test, and we can keep the chickens. If you don’t, they go back.” “He made a hundred and ten,” says Mary, “and we had ourselves some chickens.” The family read and researched online and learned all they could learn about raising chickens. And it was interesting, the things they learned. Chickens eat bugs and worms, among other things, and help keep them under control; hens don’t make a lot of noise, unlike roosters, who are very difficult to keep in the city; if properly cared for, chicken coops don’t smell, and the poop makes amazing fertilizer. (That might explain the abundance of profusely blooming flowers in containers and flower beds all around this home; this family doesn’t just get eggs, they get fertilizer, too.) For the family, it was more than just raising chickens; it was about considering where their food comes from in general. The process of having chickens has made them much more conscious of what they eat, and they look for natural and unprocessed foods in general, preferring the farmer’s market to the nearby mega-store for food. They learned that eggs, when they are freshly laid, are covered in something called “bloom,” which preserves the egg and makes it last for weeks and even months. They even planned a recent family vacation as “chicken tourists,” visiting farms that raise hens on a much larger scale. The more they learned, the more they loved the idea of having hens, even though they were plagued with the guilt of knowing that it was illegal inside the city.
“Did you ever check with the city to see if it would be OK?” I ask. The answer is “no”—neither John nor Mary wanted a record of their having asked, in case the dreaded day came when they were forced to disband the flock. They operate strictly on the “better to ask forgiveness than ask permission” theory, and as far as they are concerned, they have never officially been told that this is wrong. Officially. They have some
| noalastudios.com | september/october
CHICKEN [CONFIDENTIAL]
©Abraham Rowe
september/october | noalastudios.com |
| noalastudios.com | september/october
CHICKEN [CONFIDENTIAL]
nagging suspicions, but they also have these wonderful eggs, and that eases the pain. What about the neighbors? Surely they know what’s going on. Don’t they tell? The short answer is “no,” again. The five hens are prolific enough to provide for the family and have eggs to spare, and the family is both generous and smart. I don’t want to call it bribery, this method for keeping the neighbors happy with their regular supply of fresh eggs, but it certainly keeps them quiet—and happy. Co-conspirators, as it were. John and Mary are so nice and so enthusiastic about this illegal activity of theirs, I begin to relax. So, I think at one point, this is how it happens; you are an upright citizen, and pretty soon you’re lured into this dark underworld and you become a part of it. Only in this case, the underworld isn’t really that dark; it’s more like just shady, since the backyard has so many trees, and it’s not really an underworld but more like an upscale neighborhood…but whatever. It’s still illegal. “So, these hens must be pretty good fried up,” I say, half joking, but I am stopped dead in my tracks by a horrified look from Mary. John rushes in to fill the uncomfortable silence. “These are more than just hens in the backyard,” he says. “These are pets. Two of the five are going through ‘henopause,’ because they have gotten old, so their egg production has significantly slowed. But we couldn’t think of getting rid of them, or even ‘frying them up,’ as you say. We love them.” “And now,” he says, standing up, “it’s time for you to meet them.” The moment of truth. I follow John and Mary to the back door, and out onto the deck. Merc, the Golden Laced Wyandotte, comes rushing forward to greet us, and the other four are hanging back, watching, gauging whether or not I am going to be friendly. They have Marley, a Dominique; Rosabelle; Pez; and Roosevelt. As we amble through the backyard, moving slowly toward the chicken house, Mary tells me about Rizzo, a very social hen who had apparently wandered off with a fox or a raccoon and met an untimely end. “That’s one of the most interesting things about these animals,” she says. “They are not stupid. They’re really very smart, and extremely social.
©Abraham Rowe
september/october | noalastudios.com |
CHICKEN [CONFIDENTIAL]
©Patrick Hood
| noalastudios.com | september/october
“One of the reasons we want chickens, aside from the eggs, is that we want our daughter to grow up around animals. She’s too young for a cat or a dog, but she loves to watch the chickens, and we want her to love animals the way we do.” —“Sue”
When Rizzo disappeared, Pez went into a depression. That’s how we ended up with the other four; we brought them into the fold to help cheer Pez up. She was missing her friend.”
busy street. Once again, I’m struck by the fact that they do not seem guilty or ashamed about their illegal fowl, and really get into having chickens in their backyard.
The chickens are moving in to study me, and I am a little nervous, but Mary reassures me that they won’t hurt me. She takes some feed and lets them eat it out of her hands; they cluck softly and move about the yard, although Marley is eyeing me a little suspiciously. John and Mary steer me to the corner of the yard where the henhouse is located.
“I grew up on a farm and we raised chickens,” says the women we’ll call “Sue.” “When we got married and got a house of our own, I didn’t think it was a big deal at all to have them here. We really didn’t know it wasn’t allowed, but we didn’t ask, and so far no one has complained.” Her husband, whom we will call “Jim,” nods in agreement. Once again, better to ask forgiveness than permission.
The henhouse is actually quite nice. It’s a small wooden structure in the corner, by the fence, under a shade tree. A small part of the yard has been enclosed with a wire fence, mostly to protect the hens from predators and not so much to keep them from escaping. Part of the henhouse is the laying area, and John opens the trapdoor to show me the nest. There’s a golf ball in the nest—an incentive, I think, or a marker to let the hens know where to lay. John tells me some people use plastic Easter eggs, but it’s just to make the hens comfortable. There’s absolutely no smell, and the hens are clucking so softly I’m sure the neighbors can’t hear them. It all seems so innocent; I wonder why in the world the city doesn’t want this inside their limits?
I ask them why they think it’s against the law to have chickens in the city limits. “I’m not sure,” says Jim, “but it probably has something to do with livestock in general. People in nice neighborhoods don’t want to live next to smelly farms, but raising chickens isn’t like that at all. In fact, we’ve seen dogs in backyards who smell worse and make more noise than chickens, and dogs are legal.” We move to the backyard to see their flock, three chickens who are relatively young and haven’t really started laying yet. Jim has constructed an ingenious henhouse out of an old wooden chest of drawers, on its back; the hens have a ramp to walk up and into the house, just like the old-time cartoons I grew up watching where hens go to work every day on an egg-laying production line.
THE NEXT DAY, I’m in another neighborhood on the other side of town. I’m not quite as nervous this time, since I wasn’t attacked by killer chickens, arrested by city officials, or even bothered by suspicious neighbors during my last visit. The chickens at John and Mary’s house were so, well, cute—and the eggs were beautiful, a nice, rich, light brown color. Harmless, actually, I think, and then quickly remind myself that this is illegal activity. Today, I’m visiting with a much younger couple, fairly recently married with a young baby. Their house is also in a nice neighborhood, and their backyard sits beside a fairly
“One of the reasons we want chickens, aside from the eggs, is that we want our daughter to grow up around animals,” says Sue. “She’s too young for a cat or a dog, but she loves to watch the chickens, and we want her to love animals the way we do.” As if on cue, one of their hens moves closer to me to inspect me; I’m not as nervous around her as I was before, and let her scope me out. I must pass, because she goes back to hunting for bugs; I breathe a little sigh of relief and move on to my next family.
september/october | noalastudios.com |
AN ARTIST FRIEND OF OURS
has been raising chickens in the city for more than 20 years, and I talk to him about it. “Of course, I do it for the eggs,” says my friend, whom we will call “Brent.” “But it’s more than that. These chickens are beautiful—they are like works of art, and I add them to my garden the way I’d add flowers.” I have never thought of chickens in this way, but it is true. The subtle colors and patterns of some of the chickens I have seen were stunningly beautiful, and when the sunlight catches the feathers, some of them almost glow. The idea of these beautiful and colorful animals amongst the flowers in the backyard gives a whole new perspective to having them, and it is especially appropriate for this artist friend to point that out. This isn’t a farming project: this is an art project. Brent also points out that dogs could be smellier and noisier than his chickens, and the city’s only restriction on dogs is about the number you are allowed to have. Why couldn’t the same be true of chickens? Keep roosters out of the equation—that introduces an entirely different noise level to raising fowl, and when you have roosters, you get fertilized eggs, which leads to more chickens. That could be a recipe for trouble; if the objection to chickens within the city limits is to prevent corporate farming in nice neighborhoods, maybe an acceptable compromise is to limit the number and prohibit the roosters.
A
,
NOTHER ARTIST FRIEND an animal lover from way back, goes the extra mile to make her hens comfortable. In fact, her layers, who are an exotic variety of chicken that appears more furry than feathery, live in a chicken house decorated with art. Each hen has a portrait of herself on the walls of the coop, so she can contemplate the meaning of life while she goes about the business of egg production—or, perhaps, the art is inspiration for the hen to produce more eggs, in hopes that the she can show the family portraits to her offspring and teach them about their proud heritage. One striking similarity in all of these stories is how unashamed the owners are—and how accepting the neighbors have become. With the exception of one story of a renegade chicken gone wild, who flew over a fence and ate all of the
| noalastudios.com | september/october
neighbor’s flowers, there really haven’t been any problems. (The offending chicken got her wings clipped and hasn’t escaped since, and the neighbors cheerfully accept the egg offerings and inquire about the chickens, so peace has been restored.) My last visit is with a young couple who have raised chickens for about three years. Last week, they had four hens—Hazel, Etta, Rosie, and Lena—but one was carried away by a hawk, so they are down to three. We stand in the backyard and talk about the ins and outs of clandestine chicken raising, and as we talk the most aggressive chicken comes up to check me out. I can’t remember the chicken’s original name, but a neighbor nicknamed her “Blondie” because of her white tail, and her owners, whom we will call “Anna” and “Justin,” laugh about how personable she is. “She’ll even sit in my lap when I’m having my morning coffee on the deck,” says Anna. But that’s not all—she also loves being inside the house. Not that she’s allowed in there, but Blondie is a little sneaky and finds her way in there anyway. “It’s common to walk into the kitchen and see Blondie and our cat both eating food out of the cat dish,” says Justin. “She’d live inside with us, if we’d let her.” All three chickens are beautiful, and I can’t help but notice what great bone structure and what good muscular development they have. I tentatively broach the subject again— would you ever consider eating these chickens? The couple laughs. “We have this discussion all the time,” says Anna. “Justin says he could eat them, but I could not. If I hadn’t gotten to know them, maybe we could—we’re certainly not opposed to eating chicken! Even though consuming chickens is part of the natural order of things, these are our pets.” Justin reluctantly agrees. “Someday we hope to move to the country where we can have a little more space,” he says. “Our dream would be to have more chickens—chickens we have to lay eggs, and chickens we have to eat. We probably won’t get to know the chickens we eat, the way we know our layers.” All of this talk about eating chicken must have angered Blondie, because all of a sudden she walks right up to me and pecks at my leg. I jump, mostly because it surprised me; I am pretty sure she couldn’t really hurt me, but I did sort of move a little to put some space between us.
CHICKEN [CONFIDENTIAL]
©Abraham Rowe
september/october | noalastudios.com |
CHICKEN [CONFIDENTIAL]
©Patrick Hood
| noalastudios.com | september/october
“It’s common to walk into the kitchen and see Blondie and our cat both eating food out of the cat dish. She’d live inside with us, if we’d let her.” —“Anna”
The chicken house in this couple’s backyard is beautiful, made by Justin from leftover wood he had when he built the deck on the back of the house. There’s the ramp up to the laying area, and the chicken wire to protect them from night predators. Other than hawks, this family hasn’t had much trouble from visiting raccoons or possums, and they let their chickens roam the yard during the day. (They put themselves to bed in the coop at night.) Ashley laughs when she tells me about what happened when they first got their brood. “Our backyard is fenced, and we thought that was enough,” she says. “But we found out later that when we would leave the house to go to work in the mornings, our chickens would go visit the neighbors. All of the neighbors. We found out one time when we came home early and couldn’t find them—they were next door, visiting. Thankfully, none of the neighbors minded; in fact, they really enjoyed it, except for the flower-eating incident. We clipped their wings, eventually, to keep them in our yard, but the neighbors still hang over the fence and talk to them or check on them.” Some chicken owners keep their chickens cooped up all day long, but that’s not the healthiest thing for the chicken, and it affects the egg. “Cooped-up chickens produce eggs like you’d find at the grocery store, and our eggs have a richer taste; our chickens lay eggs that are bold, with thicker shells, and more integrity in the white.”
AFTER VISITING THE LAST FAMILY who harbors chickens, I realize I can’t really think of them as criminals any more. In fact, I wonder if we might convince our cities to rethink their policy against having hens on private property within the city limits. I can understand limiting the number, and making sure roosters aren’t in the mix, but the chickens I saw—all with names, all beautiful works of art, all productive egg-producing citizens—seem to be peaceful, happy, and loaded with personality. As more than one chicken owner pointed out, dogs can be a bigger nuisance if they aren’t cared for properly. But until that day comes, these chicken owners will continue to quietly let their chickens roam in the confines of their backyards. They’ll continue the cycle of bribing the neighbors with gifts of fresh eggs, and they will get a little nervous when a city vehicle turns down their street. And you might not ever know that there are chickens in your neighborhood, unless there are tell-tale signs. Are the neighbors’ flower beds prolific because, perhaps, they are being fertilized with chicken poop? Have you ever awakened and walked outside only to find a basket of bribery eggs on your stoop? Who knows if that cute couple next door is secretly harboring illegal hens within the fenced-in backyard of their neat-as-a-pin home? Don’t ask too many questions. Just enjoy the eggs.
What was the biggest surprise, once they became chicken ranchers? The pecking order, says Anna. “There’s really something to it,” she says. “Blondie is very much in charge of this brood. She even eats first, and then lets the others know when it’s OK for them to come eat. She’s the undisputed boss, and you’d better not forget it!”
september/october | noalastudios.com |
text by allen tomlinson photos by shannon wells and patrick hood
| noalastudios.com | september/october
you’ve ever wondered what it sounds like to hear angels sing, you might want to come to the first performance of the Huntsville Symphony Orchestra’s 61st season. There are two people you need to listen to. When Terrance Brown and Tiffany Bostic-Brown sing—especially when they sing together—it doesn’t matter who you are, or what your interest in music might be: you’ll stop and listen. Part of the reason is that their voices are so perfectly matched, but part of it is that their voices are so expressive, so rich, and so strong. If they happen to sing a song from Porgy and Bess— perhaps the song “Bess, You Is My Woman Now”—it might make you cry. There’s power in that music, and there’s power in their ability to convey the depth of the emotions written in the notes. It’s…well, it’s angelic. Lucky for our region, these two share their talents generously. Both Terrance and Tiffany are assistant professors of music at the University of North Alabama. They teach at the university, they teach private lessons, they perform, and they work to encourage other young musicians to follow their passion. “We met in graduate school at LSU,” says Tiffany, who is originally from northern Virginia. Terrance is from a small Alabama town called West Brockton (so small that “it doesn’t even
©Shannon Wells
september/october | noalastudios.com |
©Shannon Wells
| noalastudios.com | september/october
have a stoplight,” he says with a laugh.) The Browns earned their doctorates from LSU and taught private lessons, and Terrance taught at Dillard University in New Orleans while Tiffany was a member of the opera company and worked in administration there in Baton Rouge. All the while, they were performing as well. “When you’re a performer, it’s a part of your soul,” says Tiffany. Those performances have included some pretty spectacular venues. The couple is in demand for their performances of excerpts from Porgy and Bess, but love the memory of singing the Brahms Requiem at Lincoln Center (in 2011) as a part of Distinguished Concerts International at Avery Fisher Hall. That certainly isn’t all they’ve done; their performances span the country, and will include singing with the Huntsville Symphony Orchestra on September 18 in a performance of Vaughn Williams’s Sea Symphony.
When we do what we love, it makes us happy in our spirit, and that makes us better teachers, better parents, better friends, and better performers.” —Tiffany Bostic-Brown
If you’ve heard them sing, you understand why they are in such demand. But there’s so much more to this talented couple, and it begins with a story they want you to know about. Early on the morning of September 15, 1963, as parishioners were gathering for Sunday School at the 16th Avenue Baptist Church in Birmingham, a bomb planted by members of the Ku Klux Klan discharged and killed four young girls (Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson, Cynthia Wesley, and Denise McNair), injuring more than 20 others. It was one of the darkest points of the Civil Rights Movement, and 14-yearold Carolyn Maull (McKinstry), who was just feet away from the worst of it, wrote a book as an adult, titled While the World Watched: A Birmingham Bombing Survivor Comes of Age During the Civil Rights Movement. That book sparked something in the Browns, and they decided it was a story they wanted to tell. But they added another component: they tell the story and use it as a means to raise scholarship money for young singers. “The Muscle Shoals area is so deeply rooted in music. We see a lot of undiscovered talent,” says Tiffany. “Because music is so prevalent, it’s not an unusual idea to consider it as a career.” So, as a mentorship program, the Browns created Solas, a vocal ensemble of 18 singers who tour, and whose repertoire relies heavily on African American spirituals. Then, with the help of Kevin Thomas and Greg Patterson, they created Walk With Me, a musical narrative that tells the story of the 16th Street Baptist Church and that fateful day, 52 years ago. Terrance produced the musical, and Tiffany
©Patrick Hood
Facing page: Tiffany Bostic-Brown performs with the Shoals Symphony at UNA. Above: Terrance Brown is the conductor/artistic director for the Solas ensemble. For more information, visit www.walkwithmefoundation.org.
september/october | noalastudios.com |
©Shannon Wells
selected the songs; narration tells the story. (Carolyn Maull McKinstry narrated one of the first performances, which was a highly emotional experience for her, for the singers, and for the audience.) Walk With Me has been performed twice in North Alabama, and the hope is that it can be broadcast to a larger audience, possibly even through a televised performance for public television. Solas performed its first time in the Shoals in 2013 as a part of the UNA history department’s presentation of the 50th anniversary of desegregation at the university; their second performance was later that year at the Ritz Theatre in Sheffield, followed by concerts in Tupelo, Hattiesburg, and Starkville, Mississippi. Additional programs are planned, and the group is revamping its program and practicing. With the help of local attorney Tim Corley, a non-profit foundation was created, and the Walk With Me Foundation now actively raises money to provide mentorship for high school singers. Education is Walk With Me’s core value, and their goal is to choose five high school students each year and provide private instruction to teach them how to refine their voices and perform. (This year, their funds allow them to mentor two students.) Students are chosen through audition and through recommendations from area choral directors and teachers, and although the finalists are not chosen based on social or economic circumstances, you can tell the Browns are delighted when they are able to help someone who otherwise might not have the chance. “It’s mostly to provide encouragement,” says Terrance, “especially because many times families are reluctant to encourage a
| noalastudios.com | september/october
Many times families are reluctant to encourage a child to make a career this way. We want to show them what’s possible.” —Terrance Brown
Facing page: Tiffany Bostic-Brown performs on the Norton Auditorium stage for the UNA Faculty Grand Recital. Above: Baritone Terrance Brown performs with the Shoals Symphony at UNA.
©Shannon Wells
september/october | noalastudios.com |
child to make a career this way. We want to show them what’s possible.” Add a 14-month-old child, Copeland, to the mix, and you’d think this couple would have their hands full. But three years ago, the Browns began talking to the Huntsville Symphony Orchestra about performing with them. “We could never line it up until this year,” says Terrance, “but finally we were able to schedule an audition. We sang two songs each for the audition committee, and then sang a duet—and were hired.” The couple will perform on September 18 in the season premier, singing Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Sea Symphony. Based on Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, the Browns describe the orchestral work as “rich, full, patriotic, and very melodic,” even though it was written in the early 1900s and is considered a fairly contemporary work; the duo will be joined by the Huntsville Community Chorus and the full Huntsville Symphony Orchestra, now in its 61st season.
Solas, the performing ensemble for the Walk With Me Foundation, performs locally and tours the South.
The Browns are heavily involved in the music program at UNA, of course, ©Patrick Hood helping to stage the recent production of Mozart’s The Magic Flute. Plans are underway to perform Viradot’s Cendrillion (Cinderella) and Sondheim’s Into the Woods in the next season, great news for vocal students and area audiences alike. “When you become a parent, you have to become better at delegating and prioritizing,” saysTiffany, but it certainly hasn’t slowed these two down. “When we do what we love, it makes us happy in our spirit,” she says, “and that makes us better teachers, better parents, better friends, and better performers.” If you have a chance, make time to listen to these two with their angelic voices. It’s apparent their spirits are very happy.
| noalastudios.com | september/october
LAS VEGAS
Halloween Magic Great for the entire family — Illusionist Michael Grandinetti joins the HSO for an evening of music and MAGIC! Join us on our musical journey for this fun event!
Friday, October 30, 2015 7:30 p.m. Mark C. Smith Concert Hall, VBC Gregory Vajda, Music Director and Conductor Michael Grandinetti, Illusionist
Join us on a musical journey for the 2015-2016 season. For tickets or information: 256-539-4818 or hso.org
september/october | noalastudios.com |
| noalastudios.com | september/october
text by allen tomlinson » photos by patrick hood
We all know the horror stories about sugar and how bad it is for us. But there’s another side to the sugar story—and it’s pretty sweet. Imagine, for a moment, that you are a soldier, deployed to Afghanistan. In this high-tech world, your cell phone, GPS, and other electronic tracking devices are vitally important to your mission. But keeping the batteries charged so that these devices work properly is quite a challenge, and can even pose a danger. The traditional way to handle this is to bring generators and diesel fuel to your base camp to power up those devices. That might be the way it’s been done for years, “but it creates several problems,” says Sameer Singhal of CFD Research Corporation (CFDRC) in Huntsville. “For one, the presence of generators and diesel fuel create ‘signatures’ that might give your position away to the enemy, since the generators create smoke, smell, heat, and noise. Secondly, it takes a lot of diesel to run those generators, when you could really be charging your phone using the sugars in a Gatorade or a soft drink—or even with a pack of sugar.”
september/october | noalastudios.com |
| noalastudios.com | september/october
Charging your devices using sugar? Yes—and it gets better. A typical GPS system uses 24 AA batteries. One can of Coca-Cola provides the energy equivalent of 72 AA batteries—which is amazing, since one Coke can power three GPS devices (and a little horrifying when you consider the amount of sugar you’re consuming when you drink that Coke). A four-gram pack of sugar is equivalent to 6 AA batteries. And transporting soft drinks or sugar packets is a lot easier than transporting heavy fuel and generators. As amazing as this research is to an outsider, it seems to be the normal course of business at CFDRC. Dr. Vincent Harrand, one of the firm’s vice presidents, explains that the company came into being in the late 1980s as a part of the aerospace boom in Huntsville. Specifically, the company was formed after the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded in 1986, and Sameer’s father, Dr. Ashok Singhal, a leading scientific expert in the study of airflow, was recruited to study alternatives to the O-rings that failed and caused that disaster. From that beginning, the company has spent three decades working in biotech, energy, materials, and research arenas, and has earned two Small Business Association Tibbets Awards for Technology Commercialization and a host of other innovation awards. It’s also led to the study of various other types of “flow.” “Blood flow is similar to air flow,” says Sameer, “so we have been looking into biomedical applications, such as heart valves and the possibility of a pacemaker that is powered by the sugars in your blood.” Today, a patient with a pacemaker can look forward to an operation every five to seven years to replace the device because the batteries are depleted. Your body already regenerates glucose in the bloodstream, and Sameer thinks the day is close when pacemakers will be internally powered for the en-
Facing page: A fan is powered using the energy from a Gatorade. Above: a series of bio-batteries in a Bio-Cell™
september/october | noalastudios.com |
“you could really be charging your phone using the sugars in a Gatorade or a soft drink—or even with a pack of sugar.” Sameer Singhal
Microfluidic chips can allow a doctor to test medicines on cancer cells to gauge effectiveness before giving the medications to the patient. It’s a step toward personalizing medicines based on a patient’s unique DNA. Facing page: Sameer Singhal (top, right) and Vincent Harrand.
| noalastudios.com | september/october
tire life of the patient. CFDRC is also researching neuro-stimulators, for use with epileptic patients, and for use with soldiers returning from battle who suffer memory loss from PTSD or traumatic brain injury. When Vincent and Sameer talk about the variety of applications their research has impacted, and discuss the myriad of problems still to be solved, it’s obvious that they are passionate about what they are doing. “We’re a people company,” says Sameer, “and we like to hire good people and put them to work on things they are naturally interested in, and then empower them to do some pretty wonderful things.” From the company’s beginnings in a basement of a home in southeast Huntsville, to the expansive corporate headquarters on McMillian Way in Research Park with close to 100 employees, the company has experienced some phenomenal growth.
september/october | noalastudios.com |
| noalastudios.com | september/october
“Blood flow is similar to air flow, so we have been looking into biomedical applications, such as heart valves and the possibility of a pacemaker that is powered by the sugars in your blood.” Sameer Singhal
It’s not enough to just research a problem; the true impact is felt when products and systems are created that solve those problems in practical ways. That’s what CFDRC scientists spend their time doing—researching and developing products and systems that are then brought to market. One developed technology, called CFD-ACE+ (for Computational Fluid Dynamics), allows for computer simulations of fluid flow, heat transfer, and chemical reaction processes; those simulations have helped develop and improve heart valves, studied the mechanics of the inner ear (especially important for hearing loss in the military, for example), improved fuel nozzles for aircraft engines, and improved climate control systems and diesel fuel injectors for automotive companies. One such area of research resulted in a spin-off company, called SynVivo, LLC. This company creates microfluidic chips, which use a cancer patient’s own cells to test the results of certain drugs or drug combinations. Because these chips allow testing to take place outside the patient’s body, a doctor can see if the medicines are working, can see how the cells react to the medications, and can take corrective action— all without actually experimenting on the patient. Once the proper combinations and doses of medicine are determined and tested through the use of these chips, the treatment can be administered to the patient—with predictable outcomes. It’s a gigantic step toward the day when medicines are personalized to each patient based on his or her individual DNA. (For more details, visit www.synvivobio.com.) Much of the bio-engineering side of CFDRC has been done as an associate company of HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology. In fact, CFDRC was one of the first companies to locate on the HudsonAlpha campus, right next door and to
the north of HudsonAlpha’s main building on Genome Way. CFDRC’s work in enzymatic fuel cells (batteries that run on sugars), microfluidic chips, optical and electrical sensors for the detection of chemical and biological agents, and custom software tools—developed, essentially, to measure “flow” of one type or another—are consistent with HudsonAlpha’s mission to create a collaborative culture that fosters creativity and makes the world better. Even though CFDRC is involved in a lot of different things, according to Vincent, there is still work to be done. “We are working on wearable electronics and sensors for the military,” he says, “and our method is to conduct the research and development and then see if we can develop real-world applications. Huntsville is a great location because so many of our customers are nearby, and there is a great talent pool here. We see opportunity in the development of biomedical devices to fight disease, and in the field of energy, including portable energy devices that can be used for disaster relief.” Whether they are focused on aerospace and defense projects, biomedical devices, or the continued research and development of batteries that run on sugar, the company is already having a major impact on the way people live. The cancer patient whose doctor can test medicines through a chip before administering them, the soldier who is a little safer because his GPS system is charged by a soft drink, and the heart patient whose pacemaker will never have to be replaced might not know who the people at CFDRC are, but their lives are better because of them.
september/october | noalastudios.com |
| noalastudios.com | september/october
text by sara wright covington » photos by patrick hood
Let’s face it—the gym can be a pretty intimidating space. And for many people, the anxiety alone of that first gym visit can be enough to make them break out into a sweat before they even set foot through the door. But the variety and versatility of fitness routines and spaces has never been more readily available to those looking to make a positive health change, and no longer are exercisers limited to just aerobics classes and free weights at the gym. To see what’s out there, we sought out some of Huntsville’s best-loved exercise experts and discovered that there has truly never been a better time to start sweating it out.
GETTING FIT IN THE GREAT OUTDOORS: JOE MARTIN The term “Adventure Boot Camp” sounds a little like something that might involve a drill sergeant and the need to have a first aid kit at the ready. It certainly doesn’t sound like anything fun could come of it when it takes place at 5:30 a.m. Fortunately for most of us who aren’t early risers, former Army Recreation and Welfare trainer and Huntsville’s Adventure Boot Camp creator Joe Martin has several other boot camp time slots available throughout the week for what he insists is all good, healthy fun in the great outdoors. “It’s all outside,” says Martin, “and we focus on the ‘fun’ part. No matter how effective something is, if it’s miserable you won’t come back. I don’t want people to dread their workout.” Facing page: Joe Martin, best-selling fitness author and creator of Huntsville Adventure Boot Camp for Women
Once out of shape and overweight, Martin lost 50 pounds and felt fantastic, which inspired him to want to do something more to help others. Martin began working for the Army right after college and began to see that the gyms where he worked and trained weren’t always the most welcoming spaces for people looking to get into shape, especially if those people were women. “I went to the gym and saw women look around and then just never come back,” he says. “I just wanted to build a workout community where women felt like no one was looking at or judging them.”
september/october | noalastudios.com |
Now in his sixth year of designing boot camps for women, Martin has also authored the best-selling book and brands his fitness empire with the mantra “Relentless Positivity.” Using many basic exercises and techniques that are often the foundation of elementary school P.E. classes, Martin likes to change things up, and takes his adventures out of the gym into elementary schools, dance studios, playgrounds, tracks, and even parking lots. Each class is also carefully crafted so that anyone of any fitness level can take part and receive the maximum benefit from each session. “For each exercise we offer, we do a regular, a low impact, and then a higher-impact way to make it harder,” says Martin. “That way people of all shapes and abilities can get something that benefits them.” Martin says his average client is in her 40s and 50s, but the total range of all of his clients ranges from their 20s to their 70s. Although he does a few mixed men and women training groups, Martin is adamant that his best clients through the years are always the women. “Women just make much better clients,” he says. “They are more committed. They listen better. Guys don’t like other guys telling them what to do. And women gel as a team more quickly. They also focus on form versus handling a bunch of weight.” Martin offers classes five to six days a week with full body workouts, and every class promises something unique, including a monthly award ceremony presentation he calls “The Big Girl Panties Award.” The women vote on the class member who has displayed exceptional guts and gumption throughout the month’s classes. “This award is for the people who show up every day, work hard, don’t complain, and always give their best,” says Martin. “And it’s not up to me.” Martin invites anyone with a desire to get in better shape to try his boot camps, and commitments range from one year to simple month-to-month agreements. Mostly, he just wants to encourage women to take an active role in getting their
| noalastudios.com | september/october
bodies and minds into the best form possible, with a dedication and that relentless positivity he keeps at the center of his fitness pursuits. “I am helping people who have been taking care of others for years, whether it’s a job or family,” he says. “And after focusing on taking care of other people for 20 or 30 years, now they can focus on taking care of themselves.”
THE SWEAT LIFE: JEIDI PIPPIN For nearly three years now, former grade school teacher and fitness entrepreneur Jeidi Pippin has been training Huntsville to “Think. Train. Live. Differently.” After she noticed her usual fitness routine was no longer working for her, and the demands of balancing work with motherhood increased, Pippin decided to take a step back to evaluate how to incorporate positive change into her entire lifestyle. “In my late 20s, my normal workout routine of running just stopped working,” says Pippin. “I started to gain weight, and I was freaking out because my 10 year reunion was approaching. I told my husband I wanted a personal trainer for my birthday.” Pippin fell in love with weight training, and soon realized that her new love could also be a new window of teaching opportunity, especially when Pippin and her husband prepared for the birth of their second child. “I knew I was either going to become a bad mom, a bad wife, or a bad teacher. So I took a year’s leave and got my personal training certification. I had been doing weight training for five years or so, and I still loved it.” Jeidi spent time doing personal training in her home, but her husband encouraged her to take things to the next level.
Adventure Boot Camp is unique because Martin conducts his classes in less conventional spaces than the gym, often holding classes in church parking lots, playgrounds, and parks.
The couple were in the process getting approval to begin Sweat but were still nervous to make the leap when Jeidi’s husband lost his job. “That unfortunate event propelled things to that level,” says Pippin. “I don’t know that I would have been
september/october | noalastudios.com |
“I NEED YOU TO WALK IN AND GET THE SPIRIT THAT IS AT SWEAT. IT IS VERY NON-JUDGMENTAL HERE. NOBODY CARES IF YOU ARE DOING YOUR LUNGES WITH 5 LBS. OR 25 LBS. NO ONE IS SAYING ‘SHE’S BETTER THAN I AM.’ WE JUST HAVE THAT UNDERSTANDING HERE.” JEIDI PIPPIN
| noalastudios.com | september/october
brave enough had that not happened right when it did! So we opened October of 2012.” Jeidi uses the same principles she used in her school classroom at Sweat as well, and each day class participants will know what to expect by what she calls her “lesson plan” that she writes on the board. What you won’t find on her board are lists of individual names and statistics. “It’s really non-competitive here,” she says. “We don’t put names on walls because it’s not about who did what the fastest. Sometimes it’s about going slowly. Some people come in super competitive, and they can get injured.” Pippin is also candid about her own struggles with self-image and how battling an eating disorder has helped her to realize that extremes are not the answer with food or with physical training. She admits that at one point she was headed into what she calls a “very ugly place” when her own trainer pointed out her dangerous behavior, and she realized positive change had to happen. Pippin blogs about her journey with exercise and food regularly, and how her motto to think, train, and live differently all must first begin with mindset. And as the mother of young children, a mirror is literally placed in front of her daily as her children learn about body image. “I blogged not too long ago about having to catch myself, when I was giving my daughter a bath,” she says. “I remember she was watching me pinch fat in the mirror. She stopped playing to watch me and I thought ‘she is learning to hate herself.’” Pippin fully believes in using the transparency of her struggle with her training, and speaks openly about how Sweat is a place where people of all shapes, size, and fitness levels can come together in a positive space to train. “I really want people to be at peace with where they are, even it’s not their ideal place,” she says. “This is a process and a journey for everyone, no matter what place they are.”
Jeidi Pippin of Sweat has made it her goal to create a space where both men and women of all ages and fitness conditions can work together in a healthy, non-competitive environment full of encouragement and positive energy.
september/october | noalastudios.com |
Michael Helms left behind an 18 year corporate career of computers and boardrooms when he began to see the effect of stress on his own physical well-being. Now he has made a new career of creating individual fitness programs specifically designed for each person after a personalized assessment. He also teaches a variety of fitness classes for people of all ages and physical conditions.
Sweat offers a vast variety of classes, including metabolic classes with stretch and cardio, creative boot camps, and even classes using rowers, punching bags, battle ropes, and medicine balls. Sweat members range from teenagers to 75 year olds. And although everyone who enters the doors of Sweat should want to make positive change and take their physical form to the next level, Pippin mainly wants it to be a place where anyone can just feel accepted. “Everybody’s first class is free,” she says. “I need you to walk in and get the spirit that is at Sweat. It is very non-judgmental here. Nobody cares if you are doing your lunges with 5 lbs. or 25 lbs. No one is saying ‘she’s better than I am’. We just have that understanding here.”
FAKE IT TILL YOU MAKE IT FIT: MICHAEL HELMS Former software engineer and Huntsville native Michael Helms had always joked that he wanted to retire at 40. But when long, stressful days of corporate meetings, computer screens, and PowerPoint presentations actually began to take a toll on his physical health, he made retirement from
| noalastudios.com | september/october
“I LOVE HEARING PEOPLE’S BACK STORIES AND FINDING OUT WHAT MAKES THEM TICK. I KNEW WHEN I LEFT MY JOB I WANTED TO DO SOMETHING THAT WOULD BE CHALLENGING. I’VE GOT THAT, AND NOW I ACTUALLY GET TO SEE CHANGE.” MICHAEL HELMS
september/october | noalastudios.com |
“I AM HELPING PEOPLE WHO HAVE BEEN TAKING CARE OF OTHERS FOR YEARS, WHETHER IT’S A JOB OR FAMILY. AND AFTER FOCUSING ON TAKING CARE OF OTHER PEOPLE FOR 20 OR 30 YEARS, NOW THEY CAN FOCUS ON TAKING CARE OF THEMSELVES.” JOE MARTIN
corporate America a reality, leaving the board room behind to turn physical fitness into both a lifestyle and a new career. “After college, I started working for a small company. They needed sales, marketing, management, and tech support,” says Helms. “It was such a tight group. The company was growing a lot, though, and was eventually acquired. After the first six months of acquisition, I knew I had to get out. The company was not doing great, and that adds a tremendous amount of stress. I went for a physical, and although I’ve always had an arrhythmia, it had worsened enough to where they sent me for a stress test. The stress of that job just affected everything. It was a good paying job that I had enjoyed somewhat for a long time, but I knew had to find something else to do.” So after 18 years with the same company, Helms walked away to spend some time trying to determine his next steps, and he knew he wanted to do something where he could better manage his stress level and interact with and help others. Helms decided to take his love for physical fitness and helping others to the next level and get his certification to do personal training. This took many months, and he even faced starting at the very bottom again to begin his new career. “It took about eight months to get my personal certification training and then UAH let me come in and work there,” he says. “I started there as a fit tech at minimum wage, which meant I was literally sweeping floors, but I just wanted to get my foot in the door at the gym. My thought was to turn those relationships into personal training clients.” A year and a half later, Helms teaches an average of about 10 fitness classes per week and holds at least 14 individual training sessions weekly for personal training clients. And although he no longer spends his days in the boardroom, Helms says those research and presentation skills are really what help to set him apart as a personal trainer and a teacher.
| noalastudios.com | september/october
“For every client I start out with I have an assessment,” he says. “And that’s so I can build a program with them. I don’t want to get bored by having all 15 clients on the same program. I’ve had clients on their 96th program and I’ve never duplicated one. You have to design programs for that individual.” One of his favorite classes is his TRX class (Total Body Resistance Exercise), which he actually fell into teaching on a whim when an instructor was needed at the last minute. “They needed an instructor,” says Helms. “And I had never even taken the class before. This was on a Thursday and I got certified on a Saturday and had my first class on a Monday. It was definitely a fake it till you make it type thing at first, but I love what this class does for your core. And this type of training has eliminated my back pain.” Busier now than he has ever been, Helms can be found most days teaching boot camps, suspension training classes, and personal training at SportsMed Huntsville and University Fitness Center. His client base is broad, ranging in age from 14 to 72, and he says it’s their personal stories that help him to drive each and every client to push for their personal best each time. Now more at home in his career at the gym than he ever was in the corporate world, Helms may be in a very different line of work, but has been able to keep the thrill of challenge without the crippling level of stress. And his very favorite part is that he can see the positive physical changes he is helping to create. “I love hearing people’s back stories and finding out what makes them tick,” he says. “Some people are rehabbing, coming off of injuries. Others have never worked out before, and they are terrified. But I’ve got a 67 year old doing dead lift rows, and my youngest client is 14 and he has packed on 10 lbs. I knew when I left my job of 18 years I wanted to do something that would be challenging. I’ve got that, and now I actually get to see change.”
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market » By Sara Wright Covington »
Photos by Danny Mitchell
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| noalastudios.com | september/october
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september/october | noalastudios.com |
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september/october | noalastudios.com |
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| noalastudios.com | september/october
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september/october | noalastudios.com |
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the vine » Amy C. Collins Though the old rule of oyster eating strictly in the months that end in R is archaic, this is the ideal season for dining al fresco; both our bodies and the wine glass can relax sweat-free.
OYSTER WINES My appreciation for the oyster reaches back to childhood, when my father would host family gatherings on our Florida patio. The sack of Apalachicola harvest seemed a tower of exotic creatures to me, and I remember watching him hold each bivalve in one rubber-gloved hand, while working the flat knife between the top and bottom shell with the other. But I wouldn’t eat them, the taste too pungent for my young palate. True desire came late. Through my 20s and early 30s, I coveted the elation my dining partners expressed when washing down the raw mollusks with a delicate Champagne or sea-hinted Muscadet, two wines I’d fallen for long before the sweet brine of the oyster. Then, finally, one day I tried again, and was hooked. For those of us who love them, we love them immensely, for the exquisite luxury as much for the cold beverage that follows. Though the old rule of oyster eating strictly in the months that end in R is archaic, this is the ideal season for dining al fresco; both our bodies and the wine glass can relax sweat-free. We can take our time on each one without worry the ice bed will melt or the wine turn tepid. Hemingway captured the essence of such a moment in his Paris memoir, A Moveable Feast. “As I ate the oysters with their strong taste of the sea and their faint metallic taste that the cold white wine washed away, leaving only the sea taste and the succulent texture, and as I drank their cold liquid from each shell and washed it down with the crisp taste of the wine, I lost the empty feeling and began to be happy and to make plans.” Which brings us to the essential question, Which white wine should we plan to drink with oysters? As with all food and wine pairings, we’re looking for balance and compliments. Crisp light-bodied whites won’t compete with the meaty texture of the oyster, where, for example, a big buttery chardonnay will fight it. Wines with a little salinity, like Muscadet or Vinho Verde will echo the salty flavors and smooth out the metallic finish. Another steadfast trick to use is to look at the regions of the world that make white wine and harvest seafood. The Atlantic coast in northern France, Basque country in northern Spain, and just across the border, Portugal. Champagne and Chablis are further inland, but their vines grow on ancient bedrock of fossilized sea creatures, and their stainless steel production without malolactic fermentation make them perfect mates for the beloved mollusks. Below are some of my current favorites. You can find them in North Alabama at your favorite retailer store (and if not these, certainly cousins from the same regions) and at go-to oyster joints, The Bottle
and Mezza Luna in Huntsville and, on Thursday nights, Odette in downtown Florence. Muscadet is the area in France that sits just south of Nantes, at the mouth of the Loire river where the Atlantic Ocean influence dominates the weather. Muscadet is made from 100 percent melon de bourgogne, the native white wine grape there. Many of them are bottled with a little zip of carbon dioxide alongside a bright tang and sometimes slightly saline flavors. Drunk very cold, it is a star for oyster pairing. Try producers Chateau Ragotiere and Chateau la Bourdiniere. Chablis is another favorite for late afternoons and shellfish. Made from 100 percent chardonnay (which many drinkers don’t realize) north of Burgundy in stainless steel, which allows the grape to reveal it s true, unadulterated self. What better match for the naked bivalve? Try producers Simmonet-Febvre, everything from the smaller appellation Petit-Chablis to their lovely Grand Crus, and Domaine du Chantemerle Boudin. Back to the Loire Valley, Cheverny is a small appellation just outside of Touraine proper, where they grow primarily sauvignon blanc, and offer great values compared to Sancerre further east. Chardonnay and chenin blanc are also grown to some extent for the white wines. Try Domaine du Salvard Cheverny. If Europe isn’t your bag or you’re looking for more aromatic fruit and less saline-mineral notes, look to New Zealand for super crisp sauvignon blancs that offer passionfruit and ripe grapefruit aromas that finish dry. They love shellfish. Try Dog Point in Marlborough and Mt. Beautiful sauvignon blanc in North Canterbury.
Follow Amy at pigandvine.com for more stories and wine suggestions.
september/october | noalastudios.com |
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bless their hearts » Guy McClure, Jr. I couldn’t go back and I didn’t want to go forward. What I wanted was to go away; I wanted to go north or south instead of east or west and become lost in the world.
SAIL ON I started s college too young. Because of a September birthday, I was only 17 when I left my tiny homebe town of Athens in a fully packed MG and drove to to Florence to start my freshman year at the University F o North Alabama. I was brutally shy and immature, of but I knew I had to leave the proverbial nest. Petrib fied, I drove west on Highway 72 and crossed the Elk River Bridge. I became determined to make the best of things in the manner of Candide, which thankfully had been required reading just a few months before. Athens h had not really been that kind to me growing up, but it was m home base, a place to answer when I would get the inall I knew. It did serve as my evitable “Where are you ffrom?” it bl question, ti “Wh ?” It was nice enough, I guess, but it wasn’t a good fit. Our family had moved there from Huntsville when I was six and we never felt as if it was home, or at least I didn’t. I was lucky enough to have experienced a somewhat well-traveled life to that point, but it was always traveling with a crowd, and this journey was solo. I had purposely chosen UNA because none of the friends in my class were going there. I liked the thought of a fresh start, and unbeknownst to me, I would have these solo journeys into new towns six more times in my life—so far. I crossed the Shoals Creek Bridge white knuckled. Back then it was a skinny, two lane passage and the traffic had already picked up. Things were starting to move faster. I didn’t know if I was ready for that. As I entered Florence I tuned the radio to WQLT, the local top 40 station. This was 1979 at the end of the disco era, so it was a time of ballads. Good, heartfelt ones that seemed to tell stories of new starts, metamorphoses, and finding oneself. I had listened to this Florence station at night in Athens. The signal grew stronger as night when other AM stations left the air at dusk. I liked listening to what was happening 45 miles to the west. It was foreign and exotic to me. The airwaves at 107.3 on the dial were filled with jingles from places I didn’t know and a replay show of 50s music on Saturday night. It also included commentaries by local evangelists Haskell Sparks and David Sain. This always puzzled me as they seemed to always follow Donna Summer in their rotation, strategically placed, I’m thinking, to counteract her lusty lyrics. Traveling further west on Florence Boulevard, “Sail On” by the Commodores came on the radio as I pulled into the Krystal parking lot. The song was about leaving one life and starting a new one. It was actually about Lionel Ritchie leaving a relationship, but I let the ballad play to fit my needs. As I sat in that overloaded sports car and listened to that amazing song, I started to cry. I didn’t know why, but what I did know was that I couldn’t go back and I didn’t want to go forward. What I wanted was to go away; I wanted to go north or south instead of east or west and become lost in the world.
Three tiny hamburgers later, I composed myself, took a deep breath, and continued the few miles towards the college. I can still remember the feeling of pulling into the Rivers Hall loading zone and seeing others, just like me, who were arriving at a new place for the first time. After checking in on the ground floor, I traveled to the seventh floor to find my dorm room. I unloaded the car, and started the normal process of settling in, which was completely abnormal for me. I guess that meant I was a college student from that moment on, and it really didn’t take long until everything fell into place. About an hour in to the unpacking process, a crackly voice came out of an up-until-then-unnoticed speaker in the wall of my dorm room. “You have a call on phone three.” I tried to answer the phantom voice back with “What’s a phone three?” but to no avail. I walked into the hall and noticed a bank of dial-less phones near the elevator. I picked up the third one and heard my mother’s voice, checking to make sure I had made it and that I had everything I needed. Yep, now I was a college student. Both Florence and UNA have given me many happy memories and good friends. After returning to Athens after years of wanderlust, I enjoy taking that same path and crossing over the Elk River and Shoals Creek bridges whenever I can. Each time, as I come into Florence and pass that familiar spot on the Boulevard, I remember that August day 36 years ago, and I especially remember that song—that wonderful, slow, pullat-your-hearstrings song by the Commodores about new beginnings that petrified and excited me at the same time. On a recent trip I pulled into that familiar Krystal parking lot. The building had not changed; it had not been remodeled as usually happens to these type of places. My memory was so vivid that I actually remembered where I had parked that day and pulled into the same spot. I reached for my phone and searched iTunes and found it—“Sail On” by the Commodores for 99 cents. After a quick download it started to play those familiar opening staccato notes and then Lionel’s voice took me back to an uncertain time. It was as if I was sitting in that little green car—that little green ship that I sailed from one point of my life to another. After a few minutes of deep thought, I started to cry. I thought about each time I had set sail on those types of journeys and what the outcomes had been. Then I composed myself, ordered three tiny hamburgers, and drove west.
september/october | noalastudios.com |
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parting shot » Dustin Timbrook
FLYING MONKEY COMMUNITY GARDEN
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BRIDGESTREETHUNTSVILLE.COM
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M O R E T H A N 7 0 S H O P S A N D R E S TA U R A N T S , I N C L U D I N G : B E L K ALUMNI HALL
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LOFT
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BUCKLE
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PA N D O R A
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J. CREW
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DSW SHOES
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APPLE
K AT E S PA D E N E W Y O R K
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N O W O P E N : B J ’ S R E S TA U R A N T & B R E W H O U S E
B R I D G E S T R E E T T O W N C E N T R E I S L O C AT E D AT E X I T 1 4 O F F I - 5 6 5 AT O L D M A D I S O N P I K E | noalastudios.com | september/october