Marshall Good Life Magazine - Fall 2020

MARSHALL COUNTY

Micky Hunt and PALS out to keep Marshall County beautiful

Robert O. left a visual legacy of people and events on Sand Mountain FALL 2020 | COMPLIMENTARY

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Community banking – it’s more than a cliché at Citizens Bank & Trust.

We’re proud to say we’re of the community, not just in it.

In challenging times when things take an unexpected turn, it’s good to know there’s a true community bank you can count on. With local leadership and banking decisions made right here, we make sure the help you need is one less worry.

The word “community” is a big deal at Citizens Bank & Trust, and no small reason we’re here when you need us.

Here when you need us.

Even with the best in mobile banking, we hope you’ll stop in to say hello. Our Guntersville headquarters and other Marshall County offices are conveniently located and ready to serve.

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5

Welcome

There’s a place for Good Life... even in these strange corona times

I

missed you guys!

Fortunately, in more ways than one, what I get out of publishing Good Life Magazine goes beyond a regular paycheck.

I love sharing photos with you through GLM – those I shoot and those shot by others, such as Al Reese’s comet shot on pages 62-63. I also love meeting people, learning about them, writing their stories and sharing them on these pages. It’s a creative outlet that allows me to bring a little joy, a few bright colors and a taste of happiness to our readers.

(Gee ... as I write this, it’s turning out a bit differently than I’d intended. But bear with me.)

I enjoyed and still appreciate my former career in newspapers, but the ratio of the stories and photos that brought readers pleasure – as opposed to news – was nowhere near that of Good Life Magazine.

That’s one of the reasons Sheila McAnear and I don’t pretend to publish a newspaper here. You won’t find the latest depressing stats and stories on COVID-19 in the following pages.

But the ubiquitous pandemic – or “damnpemic,” if you will – can’t be ignored. Heck, the resulting shuttering of businesses is the reason we felt it prudent to cancel our summer issue.

That’s why I missed you guys, our readers. And I know that at least some of you – perhaps even bunches of you – missed us, too.

These are indeed strange days. Terrible for many.

Two people featured in our current Cullman GLM were at home as I initially wrote this, quarantined with COVID-19. It hit the family of the new pastor at my church in Arab. Two days before sending the Marshall pages to proofing I was saddened to learn Beatrice at the Glover, still featured here, was forced

by COVID-19 fallout to close.

I know others are suffering because of the coronavirus, and in all likelihood you are, too.

We cannot make the virus vanish. But here’s to hoping you can put it out of mind for a while and enjoy Good Life Magazine. Glad to have you back!

Mo Mc PUBLISHING LLC Proudly printed in Marshall County by BPI Media of Boaz

6

AUGUST | SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2020

Contributors After selling Deb’s Book Store, Deb Laslie works a lot more in the family garden. It’s big enough to take an hour to pick two rows of beans. “We didn’t have it this big last year when I was working,” she laughs. “And now I’m really working.” But no worries ... she still reads three or more books a week.

Restaurant reviewer David Myers spent the summer sampling fare from the Gulf Coast to New Orleans to North Alabama. “Hey, my friends, if you know where to look you can find food just as good up here as down in New Orleans.” His dedication to the “effort” comes with a taste of irony: “Eat well – but stay trim.”

Steve Maze is interested in many topics, including unusual critters – be they factual or old lore. “I like things that have a ring of truth to them ... but not too much,” he laughs. Among such alleged animals are coach whip snakes. He doesn’t recall ever being whipped by the latter, but says he probably would.

In 2013, Diane Moore sat around the table with her husband, David, and Sheila McAnear and helped brainstorm ideas that led to the creation of Good Life Magazine. Since then, she’s been GLM’s office manager. Always supportive, she helped out in a pinch and cooked the dishes pictured in this issue.

After COVID struck, GLM partner Sheila McAnear sewed 50-60 masks for her spiritual friends and family. More recently, she and son Terry, 21, had scares that led them to two overlapping quarantines.

It gave her time to reupholster seats in her boat – and the excuse for them to social distance on water.

GLM editor/publisher David More can get a little confused with an even keel. Add corona waves and it gets weird. He’s dealing with stories and photos from interviews and shoots he did last January and February for a summer issue that turned into the fall issue. “What year is this?”

David F. Moore Publisher/editor | 256-293-0888 david.goodlifemagazine@gmail.com

Vol. 6 No. 4 Copyright 2020 Published quarterly

Sheila T. McAnear Advertising/art director | 256-640-3973 sheila.goodlifemagazine@gmail.com

MoMc Publishing LLC P.O. Box 28, Arab, Al 35016 www.good-life-magazine.net

Local Heros Make It Happen h g u o r h t t e g l We wil ether this tog

Good Life Magazine and our valued advertisers thank those who keep us safe and keep our community functioning Antiques & Sweets Arab Electric Cooperative Arab First United Methodist Arab Jewelry & Pawn Arab Lumber & Supply, Inc. Arab Meat Market Arab Stone Works Andrews Sports Medicine Baker’s On Main Barry Latham’s Drug Blossom Boutique Boaz Discount Drugs Bragg’s Fish Market Jones Discount Pharmacy Buddy’s Flowers Buffalo Eddie’s Pour House Bug Doctor, LLC Bunch Pharmacy Century 21 Premiere Citizen’s Bank & Trust Clay Irrigation

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Inside 11 | Good Fun

A number of events are planned for fall, coronavirus allowing

14 | Good People

Micky Hunt and PALS continue the war against a littered county

20 | Good Reads

Your fall list: ‘Someone to Watch Over Me’ and ‘Book Woman’

This issue of Good Life Magazine is in remembrance of Cary Lawson Moore, best mom ever

23 | Good Cooking

Diane Moore offers up some ‘local flavor’ from Arab cookbooks

30 | Good Eats

Beatrice at the Glover ... was hall of fame worthy while it lasted

32 | Loving a house

Steven and Jessica Brindley bought a bit of history in Albertville

40 | Good Getaways

‘Life is Amazing’ ... and on full display at Decatur’s Cook Museum

44 | Snakes

These are the kind that slither (and roll) from southern tall tales

46 | Pickleball

Folks here are making a big ‘dill’ out of it with no pickle in sight

51 | Second Chance

Doug and Wanda McGee may be the first love many dogs ever get

56 | Robert O.

For 61 years he put a bit of his soul into photos of thousands

62 | Out ‘n’ About

Miss the comet while out ‘n’ about? You can see it here On the cover | Photographed from Gary and Dee Brown’s Georgia Mountain property, Painted Bluff, 5.5 miles away, looms over the Tennessee River.

This page | Grilled Wedge Salad, soup and a Razzitini from Beatrice at the Glover Restaurant.

Photos by David Moore.

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With an idea brewing in his head, Russ Elrod and his teenagers, Hensley and Aubrey, examine coffee plants in Costa Rica.

Coffee offers churches and missions a unique opportunity I

n 2013, Russ Elrod returned to college at 39. The business side of his mind drove him to earn an MBA. In 2019, the Arab man and his family made a mission trip to Costa Rica. The compassionate side of his heart drove him do that.

Be assured: some amount of coffee was involved in both decisions.

Last year, Russ’ former pastor at Arab First United Methodist Church, Steve West, put him in touch with Wil Bailey, head of Costa Rica Mission Projects.

Russ, his wife, Andrea, and their girls joined Wil and others to help build a school for at-risk children in San Isidro.

While there, the business and compassion sides of Russ combined to puzzle him: “There had to be some way to generate sustainable funding, for not only that project in Costa Rica but also other mission projects in Latin America.”

The answer was, literally, at hand.

“Coincidently, the two acres Wil bought for the school was part of a former coffee plantation,” Russ says. “It was surrounded by coffee plants. That led to the idea to sell coffee to fund missions.

“The world’s largest coffee-producing region – Latin America – was next to the largest coffee-drinking nation – the U.S.” So they recently formed Manos De 10

Manos De Dios coffee is made from 100-percent Arabica beans farmed exclusively from the high mountain ranges of Central and South America.

The specialty grade beans are roasted in small batches, ensuring a mild flavor. It’s available in bags, bulk and in “K-cups.”

Dios (The Hands of God), a volunteer-run non-profit with no overhead. This allows 100 percent of the profits from coffee sales to go towards international mission projects.

T

he company’s 50-50 profit-sharing program allows churches to sign up for free as affiliates for online sales. Manos De Dios will likewise split profits from church sponsored coffee-sale fundraisers at Christmas and Easter.

AUGUST | SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2020

Arab First Baptist and Liberty Church, along with Arab FUMC, are already signed up, and about 15 others are interested, including two in Maryland and North Carolina.

“Our goal,” Russ says, “is to spread God’s message of salvation throughout the world ... one bag of coffee at a time.”

For more information – or to order coffee – visit: ManosDeDios.com; email Russ at info@ManosDeDios.com; or call him at: 256-572-0352.

DISCLAIMER NOTICE Works by current and past art teachers are on display at the Mountain Valley Arts Council gallery, including “Dragonflies on Green” by Vicki Dodd and “Ballet in Black & White” by Charlie Leverett. But with coronavirus pandemic numbers still growing in Alabama, the state’s mandatory face mask order remains in place as GLM went to press. Some big annual events, such as the Guntersville Lions Club car show, have been canceled. Others, such as Marshall Medical Center’s Pink Pumpkin Run, remained in limbo. What’s more, while still planned at deadline, all of the events listed in Good Fun are tentative.

Good Fun • Now-Aug. 28 – Marshall County Art Teachers Marshall County Arts Council hosted its first exhibit featuring area art teachers, past and present, in 2019. Students invited. Masks required.

A public reception for exhibiting teachers will be 5-7 p.m. Aug. 8 at the MVAC gallery, now located at 440 Gunter Ave. across from the Marshall County Courthouse. It is open 1-5 p.m. Tuesday-Friday; 10 a.m.-2 p.m.

Saturday. Admission is free. For more info: 256-571-7199.

• Now-Aug. 30 – Early Churches in Guntersville Explore the beginnings of some of Guntersville’s oldest churches through narrative panels, artifacts, original art

Events still planned but ... and photography. The exhibit is at the Guntersville Museum. Masks required.

The museum is located at 1215 Rayburn Ave. Open Tuesday-Friday from 10 a.m.-4 p.m.; Saturday-Sunday from 1-4 p.m. Free admission. For more info: 256-571-7597.

will be 5-7 p.m. Sept. 3 at the MVAC gallery, now located at 440 Gunter Ave. across from the Marshall County Courthouse. It is open 1-5 p.m. Tuesday-Friday; 10 a.m.-2 p.m.

Saturday. Admission is free. For more info: 256-571-7199.

• Sept. 3-25 – A Few Of Our Favorite Things After the great response to the first show-and-tell exhibit by Mountain Valley Arts Council members, the group is making this an annual exhibit.

Current MVAC members are invited to showcase a piece of favorite artwork they created, bought or received as a gift; can be priced to sell; they will also provide info on its back story. Masks required.

A public reception for exhibitors

• Sept. 4-5 – 50th Annual St. Williams Seafood Festival The festival will again be held at the Guntersville church’s Foley Center at 915 Gunter Ave. Due to health concerns, all sales are drive-through only. The good news is that you can still get Cajun boiled shrimp by the pound and frozen gumbo by the quart, plus they’ll have St. Bernard Monk Bread, fresh-baked at the Cullman Abbey. Open 3-6 p.m. Friday and from 7:30 a.m. until it’s all gone Saturday.

AUGUST | SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2020

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• Sept. 11 –Wine Cork Crafts Create wine cork art and crafts at the Mountain Valley Arts Council’s monthly Art Uncorked workshop, led

by Becky H. Scheinert. Bring your own corks, but there will be plenty to share. No artistic experience necessary, just BYOB and wear a mask.

The workshop is 6-8 p.m. at the MVAC Gallery, now located at 440 Gunter Ave. across from the Marshall County Courthouse. Cost is $35 in advance / $40 at the door. Call in advance to reserve your Elmer’s glue, paints, brushes and corks: 256-5717199.

• Oct. 9 – Takeoff On Van Gogh Led by Marty Bibee, at the Mountain Valley Arts Council’s monthly Art Uncorked you can try your hand at Vincent Van Gogh’s style of Impressionism. No artistic experience necessary. Crowd is limited to less than 20 for social distancing.

Bring a mask … and BYOB. The workshop is 6-8 p.m. at the MVAC Gallery, now located at 440

Gunter Ave. across from the Marshall County Courthouse. Cost is $35 in advance / $40 at the door. Call in advance to reserve your brushes, paints and easel: 256-571-7199.

information on registration, vendor space and the event, contact the Chamber of Commerce: 256-5938154; or boazchamberassist@gmail. com.

• Oct. 2-3 – Boaz Harvest Festival The free, 56th annual event will take place with vendors, activities and music along Main Street, with the cornhole tournament and Miss Harvest Festival Pageant at Mill Street Park. The event runs 8 a.m.-6 p.m.

Friday and Saturday. There will be food trucks and food vendors plus a kids area.

Friday includes the Boaz Marching Band, Snead State Jazz Band and Country Case. Saturday you can enjoy Gary Waldrep, Bloodline and more.

The farmer’s market will be open both days, and Saturday the popular pumpkin contests return with prizes for the biggest and best decorated entries.

The pageant starts at 9 a.m.

Saturday. Registration for the car, truck and – new this year - antique tractor show from 8-10 a.m. For more

• Oct. 9-10 – Fallfest 2020 Plans were not complete at press time, but downtown Guntersville will be hopping again as North Town Merchants Association and the City of Guntersville will have vendors set up with arts and crafts and merchandise; there will be food trucks, an outdoor marketplace, live music at Errol Allen Park and fun activities for the kids including a train ride.

For more info contact Lisa Baker: lisa@bakersonmain.com; or call Bakers on Main: 256-582-1300.

Let Terry Bennett and staff take care of all your pharmacy needs.

• Oct. 29 – Trunk or Treat Score big for Halloween, 4:307:30 p.m. at the Farmers Market in downtown Albertville. Most of the “trunks” are sponsored by local merchants. For more info: Albertville Chamber of Commerce, 256-8783821.

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AUGUST | SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2020

13

SNAPSHOT: Michael “Micky� Hunt

EARLY LIFE: Son of the late Curtis and Katie Hunt; born in Atlanta, grew up in Huntsville.

FAMILY: Married the former Cindy Mattson of Minnesota Sept. 20, 1975. Two grown children: Bryant, lives in Madison, wife Julianna, works at Remington Firearms in Huntsville; Chelsey lives with her husband Jeff Henthorn in Tuscaloosa, where she works for the city.

EDUCATION: Graduated Lee High School, 1971; attended Jacksonville State University two years; studied marketing and business law at The University of Alabama; left his senior year in 1977 to return home for family matters.

CAREER: Hired by TVA and attended hydro operator training school at Wilson Dam, 1980-82; transferred to Phipps Bend, Tenn; as a substation operator, 1982-84; hydro operator at TVA facilities on the Ocoee River; 1984-87; promoted to senior operator, Kentucky Dam, 1987; senior operator, Guntersville Dam in 1990; retired from there in 2007.

OTHER ACTIVITIES: County election inspector in his Honeycomb precincts; members of the RSVP Water Watch Program testing creeks and streams in Marshall County.

Good People

5 Questions Story and photos

by David Moore

I

t was almost surreal, the ugliness of the moment rearing up, seemingly from nowhere. And it remains burned into the mind’s eye of Micky Hunt. It happened one Saturday last fall, and, of all things, the president of the Marshall County PALS – People Against a Littered State – was on his way to a trash pickup.

“I saw this old, 1940s pickup truck that had been beautifully restored,” Micky says. “It had been repainted and had wooden slats on the bed and baby moon caps on the wheels.”

A grandfatherly gentleman was driving, a young boy of about 10 next to him on the passenger side, a Norman Rockwell moment.

Micky pulled alongside them and waved.

“I like your truck,” he called out the window, giving a thumb’s up.

“Thank you!”

About that time, they turned off the highway. And, as Micky watched, the grandfather threw a big bag of fast food containers from Hardee’s right out the window.

“Damn!’ Mickey thought. “The guy is so proud of his clean truck that he doesn’t want garbage in it, so he just threw his litter right out the window.”

Then, Micky still watching, the young boy likewise threw a bag of fast food trash out his window.

Aghast, Micky laid on his horn.

Where was the guy’s civic pride? And what was this child learning from him?

The obvious answers – “he had none” and “to be a litterbug.”

M

icky credits his father’s deep involvement in the Huntsville Civitan Club with instilling in him a strong sense of civic-mindedness at an early age.

“I was probably 10 when he had me out in front of the old G.C. Murphy

Micky Hunt

Siding with PALS in the constant war against littering across Marshall County five and dime store selling Claxon Fruit Cakes,” Micky laughs. “He knew people might buy them from a kid.”

Curtis Hunt rose to be vice president of Civitan International by the time his son was at Lee High School. With urging from Curtis, Micky eagerly started a Junior Civitan Club. Calling a meeting of 30-40 kids, it became the first Junior Civitan club in North Alabama. Before graduating, he started 17 clubs in the region, including Marshall County High School.

“That’s how I got used to doing public service,” he says. “And luckily we lived a few blocks from a church that sponsored a Boy Scout Troop. In the Scouts, they teach you to leave no trace wherever you go … care for the land and appreciate what you have.”

Even if simmering in the background, that appreciation remained with Micky and later dovetailed with his TVA career.

But it was not in his foremind when he left for Jacksonville State University.

Later, at The University of Alabama, Micky worked up to three jobs while taking classes: apartment complex security guard paid poorly but came with a free apartment and time to study in the guard shack; he worked midnight to 6 a.m. at a convenience store before showering for class; weekends it was deli work.

The deli job was located across from the football practice field, a perk for any Crimson Tide fan. But the biggest benefit of the job is that Cindy Mattson was his boss. They married in 1975.

I

n 1977, the second semester of Micky’s senior year, his dad started a business, contracting to build barracks on Redstone Arsenal. Back surgery left Curtis unable to fulfill the contract so, with bankruptcy pending, Micky headed home to complete the job, ending his college days just short of a degree.

For a while he did construction,

worked in a convenience store and managed a gift shop at the former Parkway City Mall.

In 1980, his life found direction – though not the one he initially intended – when he applied for a job at Bellefonte with TVA, which was training people for nuclear jobs. This was shortly after the partial meltdown at Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island, and in the two weeks between his application and acceptance, the glow of Bellefonte turned negative in Micky’s mind.

TVA’s hydropower division, however, hired him for a dam job. He spent two years training at Wilson Dam and two more in Tennessee at Phipps Bend. He got his first hydro operator job – “dam” job, as he likes to say – on the Ocoee in 1983 before upgrading to senior operator at Kentucky Dam in 1987. He transferred to Guntersville Dam as senior operator in 1990.

It was here when those “leave no trace” lessons of Micky’s younger days struck home – or floated home, as the case might be. Guntersville Dam not only backs up water to fill a 67,900-acre lake, it also works like a seine to catch trash.

M

icky quickly noticed how trash backed up at the spillway floodgates, most of it, because of the hydraulics, at gate 18, closest to the power house.

Some of the trash was organic, but there was plenty of Styrofoam, life vests, noodles and drink bottles. Some of the trash blew out of boats; much was deliberately discarded.

“We’ve become a consumerdisposable society, which leads people to litter,” Micky says. “I wish I owned stock in Mountain Dew.” Normally, TVA didn’t let the trash get too backed up. But sometimes employees themselves were so backed up with work that the trash became problematic from an operations standpoint.

“When it got bad, we’d shut down

AUGUST | SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER

2020

15

the turbines and get the garbage out of the (upstream) forebay,” Micky says. “I actually got out in the forebay – walking on the litter. It was about nine feet thick where we measured. My feet got wet but I was able to walk on it.”

They had to use a crane on a barge to clean it up.

I

t opened Micky’s eyes. He began noticing trash on county roadways, notably on Snow Point Road, running from Union Grove Road to the dam.

One day, he attended a meeting with TVA supervisor Randy Battles and several county officials organized

by Jean McCrady, Faye Markum, Jane Walley, who recently chartered a county chapter of Alabama PALS at the former office in Warrenton and were three local women who were bothered by litter and discussing Alabama PALS. They also discussed the Adopt-A-Mile program, which stirred Micky and others to action.

“The seeds were planted and volunteers sprouted up,” he says. “I filled out a form, and it was one of the first Adopt-A-Miles in Guntersville.”

He recruited TVA employees, and

one Friday morning every three months they’d pick up the litter along Snow Point.

In the afternoon they’d hit the picnic area below the dam.

“We would have two or three pickup trucks heaping over with hundreds and hundreds of bags of garbage,” Micky says. “As the years went by, we noticed we were picking up less and less litter.

I believe that some people saw us and would think. ‘Maybe I should not be throwing out my garbage.’”

M

icky tried to attend meetings of the county’s PALS chapter, but shift work at TVA made that all but impossible. That changed with retirement in 2007.

“After retirement,” he laughs, “I found out they will hunt you down and make you volunteer.”

Micky had been a PALS volunteer three or four years when the former president resigned, then executive director Jeannie Wilder asked him if he’d fill the opening.

“I’ve never been president of anything but a Junior Civitan Club,” he told her.

“But I will if you will help me.”

By then, PALS operated out of a

small, ground-floor office in the Marshall County Courthouse.

Micky soon hit his pace.

“People would call and say, ‘My road is dirty, come pick it up,’” he recalls. “I’d say, ‘We will if you apply for Adopt-A-Mile.’ It was a mutual back scratching.”

At the time, PALS has more than 100 dues-paying members.

“We still have a small handful of dedicated volunteers who will actually go out and pick up trash,” Micky says.

While numbers have dropped, Marshall County PALS remains an acclaimed chapter. Last year it won six “Governor’s Awards” from the state organization: • County Award – Marshall County PALS; • Adopt-A-Mile Award – Marshall County Democratic Club for its AdoptA-Mile section of U.S. 431 just north of Veterans Memorial Bridge; • Business and Industry Award – Federal Mogul Corp., Boaz; • Law Enforcement Award – Sheriff Phil Sims and the Marshall County Sheriff ’s Office.

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1.

Marshall County has many beautiful places. What are our ugliest places when it comes to litter?

Sadly, you can go about anywhere in Marshall County and see litter. It’s there, even if it’s covered up in the late spring, summer and fall.

These are some of the areas where we get our most complaints …

• Alabama 79 North from U.S. 431 to the Jackson County line.

• Cox Gap Road in the southern part of the county, right off Alabama 79 South is horrible. It’s a mountain road.

• Swearengin Road, which drops off the mountain from the light in Grant, gets a lot of litter. So does Simpson Point Road off U.S. 431 North going up to Grant.

• Red Barn Road in Guntersville, where the Cracker Barrel is, is a little side road. People pulling out of the shopping center and restaurants there don’t go 100 yards without throwing out garbage.

• One of the worst places for litter

is Fry Gap Road from Arab down into Browns Valley.

• Another of the worst areas we’ve picked up is called Jughandle Hollow.

(I think at one time you could buy moonshine there.) That’s a back way from Guntersville to Albertville, off Alabama 227 going up Wyeth Mountain Road.

Among others, employees at the feed plants on the lake use that road.

When R.E. Martin was District 2 commissioner and found out PALS would clean it up, he sent a big old truck, and we picked up two and a half tons of garbage in a two-day period.

I don’t know why people especially litter roads going up and down our mountains. I guess it’s just something in their head … they have to get rid of that garbage. They also seem to love littering at bridges and streams. And the lakeshore.

PALS does lakeshore cleanup with TVA from boats.

2.

What sort of things turn up as roadside litter?

PALS has found drugs and drug paraphernalia thrown from vehicles.

Blasting caps and dynamite. Even a new iPhone and a $100 – though those might not have been discarded on purpose.

Along with all of the usual stuff, there’s glass, plastic, metal, car parts and tags, construction materials, furniture, mattresses and carpet. We find lots of tires, some car batteries, tools, life jackets and floats, fishing rods and reels and tackle boxes. Some people need to be more careful tying things down in the trucks and boats. If something blows out, it becomes litter.

At Honeycomb Cemetery off U.S. 431 is the TVA day-use area. We’ve had some “homesteaders” there, and I’ve had to call the TVA police to run them off.

PALS has done a President Day’s cleanup there in February the last few years and got a huge pile of trash that includes tires, construction materials, bags of garbage and even a toilet.

3.

If there’s a way to stop litter, what is it, short of summary execution?

Education.

Trying to fight litter, our executive director Cecilia Pullen, other volunteers

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and I make anti-litter presentations at schools and to civic clubs. And Boaz Intermediate School has done great things with the PALS Clean Campus Program.

Our goal is to work ourselves out of a job. I think we’re the only non-profit trying to do that.

Coronavirus got some of our projects off track, but one was distributing 25 books – “Earth Remembers When” – to all of the school libraries. It’s an award winning environmental book by Dawn Wynne. Each page shows a beautiful scene of the earth or ocean, and the page opens out to show what it will look like if we continue trashing it.

In the past, every fall, busloads of school kids attend the ARTS program at the lake. I set up a PALS booth, and we have groups and classrooms come to the booth. I like to educate them on who, what, when, where and why people litter.

If you can educate the kids and they tell their mom and dad what they learned, then maybe their parents will stop littering.

A lot of litter is containers for food and drinks. If you buy a Coke, you also buy the container.

People need to realize that what you do with the container is very important.

Some folks say people litter because they are lazy or because they don’t care.

I have my own thoughts about it – I think they litter because they only live in the now. They don’t think of the past and future. It’s all about me. Today.

We are all connected, bound together by three basic needs – clean air, clean water and clean land. People who understand this do not litter. It’s the ones who don’t feel that humankind connection who litter. They are the ones who are living in the now.

It really comes down to a personal decision. You either litter or you don’t.

No one is born a litter bug. You are actually taught to litter by your parents, friends and family.

It’s like monkey see, monkey do … like that littering grandfather in the pickup truck. His grandson was sitting there learning to litter from him.

4.

So, fighting litter is a tough war. How do you keep volunteers going?

18

PALS info

The executive board members of Marshall County PALS are: Executive director - Cecilia Pullen President - Michael Hunt Vice president - Alan Scott Treasurer - John Zibarth Secretary - Rebecca Whitaker Wayne Whitaker John Zibarth Jean McCrady Lynn Hurley Talmadge Butler Funding by annual membership: $20, individual; $25, family; $30, business; sponsorship are $100.

Want to volunteer? Got questions? Call Cecilia MondayThursday at the PALS office: 256-582-1918; or Micky: 256582-1610; or visit Marshall County PALS on Facebook.

It is hard. I have had people argue with me that they even have a right to litter – “Who are you to tell me I cannot litter. I can litter if I want to.” And I am thinking, “Man, you are one shortsighted individual.”

I think the old saying is true: Think globally but act locally. You have to keep the big picture in focus, but it’s sometimes difficult when you see our littered roads.

Without our volunteers doing what they do, however, it would be so much worse.

How to keep going: I contact each person doing an Adopt-A-Mile or AdoptA-Stream program and tell them I will provide PALS volunteers. I will provide the bags, the gloves, safety vests and litter grabbers.

We encourage our volunteers to pick up four times a year. Essentially, they have to have it in their heart. Or they have to hate litter bad enough to get out and pick it up.

I look at PALS as a pebble tossed into calm water. We send out ripples in the water… ripples of awareness about litter.

AUGUST | SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2020

Another thing I hope will help the cause is the state law passed last year that changes litter violations from Class C misdemeanors to Class B. That means first-time offenders can be fined up to $500. Second offenses carry fines from $1,000 to $3,000 and up to 100 hours of community service picking up litter along the highways or waterways.

Conviction also means possible jail time up to six months.

The law kicks in additional penalties for certain types of littering from a vehicle or vessel, including tossing out cigarette butts, cigars and food containers. Those violations will cost you an additional $500.

5.

What’s something most people don’t know about Micky Hunt?

When we were at UA in 1977, Cindy got a job in the university records department. She came home one day and said she knew where Bear Bryant lived. He had moved, and she had changed his address for the records. I was like really excited!

The next Saturday Alabama won a big home game, and Cindy and I partied all night and went to eat breakfast the next morning. At the restaurant I got a free map of Tuscaloosa, and we located Watermelon Road.

So at eight o’clock we found ourselves parked in front of Bear’s house. In about 15 minutes the paperboy came and threw the Sunday paper on his sidewalk.

Suddenly, without much thought, I decided to give Bear his Sunday paper and walked up to the door and rang the bell.

In a minute the door opened and there stood Bear Bryant in his housecoat and slippers.

I suddenly felt so intimidated.

In his gravelly old voice he asked, “What are you doing, boy? What do you want?”

“Ah, ah, ah …” I stuttered, redfaced. “Ah … here’s your Sunday paper, Bear.”

I handed him the paper and ran to the car like a scared cat. We went home and laughed for two days at how scared I had been. My wife still laughs about it.

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19

Good Reads

Pack Horse Librarian delivers a tale of ‘humankindness”

Revisiting McNaught comes with the threat of sleep loss

arely does a book draw me into another place and time so completely that I am unable to get the characters and their stories out of my mind for days, much less weeks on end. Such is the power of “The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek” by Kim Michele Richardson.

Awash in historical “A pig in lipstick is still a accuracy, it is the story of WPA Pack Horse Librarian stinkin’ pig,” she spat, her Cussy Mary Carter. wet hiss spinning in the Strong of mind and body, air as she swept past to and with the help of her her desk. I turned. Her red overprotective and highly eyes bored into mine. And intelligent mule, Junia, I held them, locked, and Cussy delivers more than books. She brings hope. lifted my chin two-man The story Richardson tall, snatching back some weaves about the of the humankind that librarians and their had been stolen. patrons, their lives and the circumstances under which they endure is wholly enthralling. These women braved the hills and hollers, the raging waters, icy rain, snow and sometimes even good weather to bring the love and joy of reading to the mountain people of Eastern Kentucky from 1935 until 1943.

This book inspired me to count my abundant blessings – and not only for the books we have available to us today. I am now thankful for the personal sacrifice of so many to spread “humankindness” to others. Would that we could all be as steadfast as Miss Cussy and as true as Junia.

– Deb Laslie

’ve been staying inside for quite some time now. (How about you?) Fortunately, I have an abundance of books in my personal library. There I found a copy of Judith McNaught’s “Someone to Watch Over Me” (2003) and was reminded of how a truly gifted writer can draw you into their “Miss Kendall, can you world and introduce you to some marvelous hear me? I’m Dr. Metcalf, characters and captivating and you’re at Good storylines.

Samaritan Hospital in Leigh Kendall is a Mountainside. We’re successful Broadway going to take you out of actress. Her marriage to the ambulance now and Logan Manning, scion of an old New York family, is into the emergency room.” the stuff of dreams.

But when Leigh’s car skids off an icy road on her way to meet Logan at their mountain cabin, her life skids out of control as well. When she awakes in the hospital, she’s told her husband is missing and she discovers his business affairs are not as “businesslike” as she had thought.

While the police suspect her of foul play (she is quite the actress), her stage career is usurped by her understudy, and Kendall realizes that the difference between friends and enemies is impossible to distinguish. Alone and determined, Kendall seeks the truth above all.

And you’ll lose sleep during this stay-at-home read. Pick up a copy at your local bookseller (you’ll probably find a used copy) and re-discover books by Judith McNaught.

– Deb Laslie

R

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Local flavors

Cooking in Arab with the Methodists, Rotarians and Mothers’ Club

Good Cooking As people find out over and over, the coronavirus pandemic effects aspects of our lives across the board, sometimes in unusual ways. The guest cook story for this issue had to cancel because of the need to quarantine while caring for her mother and granddaughter. Diane Moore of Arab volunteered to substitute as the guest cook and prepare four recipes for photographs. As a theme, she pulled those and other recipes from three cookbooks she’s used over the years that were published by local organizations.

LOW COUNTRY BOIL Ed Cooper – Rotary Cookbook 1 lb. large shrimp 1 lb. smoked sausage 12-15 small red potatoes 2 pkgs. of crab boil 4 or 5 small onions, trim tops

1 pkg. frozen corn on the cob.

In large stock pot add potatoes, onions and crab boil. Fill 3/4 full with water and boil. Cut sausage into bite-

size pieces, add corn and sausage. After 30 minutes test potatoes and when they are tender, add shrimp. Cook until they turn pink. Approximately 10 minutes. Serve and enjoy!

AUGUST | SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2020

23

OVEN-ROASTED ASPARAGUS WITH PARMESAN SHAVINGS Betty Sims Arab Mothers’ Club 1 cup olive oil 2 Tbsp. chopped fresh rosemary leaves 2 Tbsp. chopped fresh thyme leaves 1/2 tsp. salt 1/2 tsp. pepper 2 lbs. asparagus, trimmed 1/2 cup Parmesan shavings Combine olive oil, rosemary, thyme, salt and pepper in a medium bowl and mix well.

Add asparagus and toss to coat evenly. Place asparagus on a rimmed baking sheet. Bake at 400° for 20 to 25 minutes or until asparagus is tender.

Place asparagus on a platter.

Scatter the cheese shavings over the asparagus.

SZECHUAN CUCUMBER SALAD Dot Pool – Arab FUMC Cookbook 3 medium cucumbers 1 red pepper 1 medium red onion Lettuce leaves Dry roasted peanuts Dressing 1/4 cup rice vinegar or white wine vinegar 3 Tbsp. reduced-sodium soy sauce 2 Tbsp. olive oil 2 Tbsp. fresh parsley, chopped 1/2 tsp. sugar 1/2 tsp. ground ginger 1/2 tsp. crushed red pepper

BROCCOLI WITH OLIVE OIL AND LEMON ZEST Alyce and Roye Marshall – Rotary Cookbook 1 garlic clove, crushed 1/2 cup pitted olives Grated zest of 1/2 lemon 1/2 cup olive oil 1/2 tsp. chili pepper flakes Salt and pepper to taste 24

AUGUST | SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2020

3 large stalks broccoli, chopped Steam broccoli for five minutes until crisp and tender. Combine all other ingredients and pour over broccoli. Serve at room temperature.

Seed cucumbers, quarter lengthwise and cut into quarterinch slices. Cut red pepper into julienne strips and coarsely chop red onion. Toss together. Whisk all dressing ingredients together.

Cover dressing and refrigerate at least 30 minutes to blend flavors.

Drizzle dressing over cucumber mixture. Toss, serve on lettuce leaves and sprinkle with dry roasted peanuts.

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CAVATINI Arab Mothers’ Club 1 lb. ground beef 1 lb. mild ground sausage 1 medium onion, chopped 1 green pepper, chopped 3 1/2 oz. pkg. pepperoni slices, chopped 28 oz. can crushed tomatoes 26 1/2 oz. jar spaghetti sauce 16 oz. pkg. shell macaroni, cooked 1 cup grated parmesan cheese

4 cups shredded mozzarella cheese Cook ground beef and next three ingredients in a large skillet over medium heat, stirring until meat browns and crumbles. Drain well, set aside. Combine chopped pepperoni and next three ingredients in a large bowl.

BAKED RANCH CHICKEN Anthony Wilson – Arab FUMC Cookbook 1 stick butter, melted 1 pkg. of hidden Valley Ranch dressing mix 1 cup Parmesan cheese 1 cup breadcrumbs, fresh or prepared 1 pkg. chicken breast, boneless and skinless Preheat oven to 350°. Pour melted butter in a large dish big enough to dip chicken in.

In a large bowl mix the cheese, dressing mix and bread crumbs. Spray 26

baking dish lightly with non-stick spray. Line up dishes in order: butter, bread crumb mixture and baking dish.

Dip chicken breast into the melted butter. Then dredge it in the breading mix, covering thoroughly. Place into the baking dish. Repeat this process for all chicken breasts.

For any breading mix left, sprinkle it over the chicken breast before baking.

Bake for 45 to 55 minutes depending on size of chicken breasts.

May be served with spaghetti.

AUGUST | SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2020

Stir in meat mixture and pasta shells. Spoon half of the mixture onto two slightly greased 11 x 7” baking dishes. Sprinkle with half of the parmesan and mozzarella cheeses.

Top with remaining pasta mixture.

Bake at 350° for 30 minutes or until heated. Top with remaining cheese.

Bake additional five minutes.

TEXAS CAVIAR Linda Hart – Arab FUMC Cookbook 1 can field peas with jalapeño peppers, drained 2 cans white shoe peg corn, drained 1 can chopped green chilies, drained 1 onion, chopped fine 2 large tomatoes, chopped fine or two cans of chopped tomatoes drained 1 8 oz. bottle Italian dressing Mix all ingredients and serve with tortilla chips.

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TURTLES

Sharon Tate – Arab FUMC Cookbook 1 14 oz. pkg. Kraft caramels 2/3 cup evaporated milk 1 1/2 sticks butter 1 box German chocolate cake mix 1 small bag semi sweet chocolate mini chips 1 cup pecans Preheat oven to 350°. Melt caramels and 1/3 cup of milk, let cool. Melt butter, mix well with cake mix and 1/3 cup of milk.

Divide in half. Spread in pan.

Cook for six minutes. Spread pecans and mini chips on top.

Pour caramel over. Take other half of cake batter and drop in spoonfuls on top. Bake for 15 to 18 minutes. Cut in pieces.

HONEYBUN CAKE Melba Hall – Rotary Cookbook 1 box yellow cake mix 1 cup buttermilk 4 eggs 3/4 cup oil 1/2 cup sugar 1/2 cup of nuts 4 tsp. cinnamon 3/4 cup brown sugar 1/4 cup raisins (can omit or use dates) Icing 2 cups powdered sugar 1 tsp. vanilla 2 Tbsp. of milk Mix cake mix, buttermilk, oil, eggs, sugar and beat two minutes. Pour into a 9 x 13” pan. Mix nuts, cinnamon, brown sugar and raisins. Swirl lightly through batter. Bake at 350° for 45 minutes or until done.

For the icing mix powdered sugar, vanilla and milk. Spread on cake while hot.

GRILLED TILAPIA Arab Mothers’ Club 6 Tbsp. olive oil plus additional for brushing 1 Tbsp grated orange zest 6 Tbsp. freshly squeezed orange juice 1 Tbsp. grated fresh ginger 1 tsp. hot sauce 1 tsp. salt Freshly ground black pepper Six 6 oz. tilapia fillets Place fish in large nonmetal dish.

Whisk together oil, orange zest, orange juice, ginger, hot sauce, salt and pepper. Pour over fish.

Cover and marinate in refrigerator for 30-60 minutes.

Prepare grill to approximately 500°. Brush fish with additional oil. Grill just until fish flakes when tested with a fork, around five minutes per side.

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AUGUST | SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2020

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Good Eats

Glover made its case for the Marshall County Culinary Hall of Fame, but ...

Note: Just before GLM went to press, the Glovers announced they were closing their Guntersville restaurant to reopen at 1504 Rainbow Drive in Gadsden. They said the economic impact from COVID proved devastating. They plan to reopen in about two months with Jimmy Glover as head chef serving the same menu.

“Two years ago a dream was realized with the reopening of the Historic Glover,” Beatrice said. “It has been our great honor to serve this community, and we are forever grateful for the support we received.”

In memory of good times and good food, here’s the story of what was ...

Story by David Myers Photos by David Moore

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he Glover is owned by Jimmy and Beatrice Glover, a culinary couple who go way back in the local restaurant scene.

Beatrice, originally from Switzerland, served fine fare with a European touch at La Strada, which started out at the top of Sand Mountain then later moved into the same historic building where the current restaurant is located. She had a long tenure running Aqua at the Wyndham Hotel, where she worked with Jimmy, now her husband.

Jimmy cut his teeth in the hotel kitchen alongside chefs including the locally-known Sebastien, who taught him French cooking.

Others followed sharing Cajun, Brazilian and even some Alaskan influences until Jimmy finally had his chance to take over the kitchen about six years ago. He readily admits to being a self-taught chef with no formal training.

“We’re fortunate enough to know what people here are interested in,” he says, citing fish, steaks and chicken as the top sellers. “Consistency is what’s important to us.”

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An Albertville native, Jimmy surprises diners when he says the fact that his name is on the building is just a coincidence.

The red brick, three-story building opened in 1932 as a hotel. Through many reincarnations it has retained its old-style beauty with high ceilings, chandeliers and crown molding throughout. Its spacious rooms allow ample area for diners to distance from each other.

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hat’s enough about history. I came for the food.

We started with an appetizer sampler.

Not to be missed are the cheese bombs. A mixture of Gouda, mozzarella and cream cheese wrapped in puff pastry and baked,

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these are little clouds of cheesy goodness.

The crab cakes blend lumps of crab with subtle seasoning highlighted by the freshmade remoulade sauce. The scallops were perfectly cooked to a gentle golden brown.

Now that’s the way to start a meal.

Grilled wedge salads were next.

Happily for Rose, Romaine lettuce was the green of choice rather than the inferior iceberg. Topped with cherry tomatoes, bacon and homemade ranch, the smoky taste from a few seconds on the grill elevated this from an ordinary meal starter to a gourmet treat.

Now I’m not a guy who’s big on fancy food, but with a strong recommendation from the chef we ordered their signature

Clockwise from upper left: Angus Beef Wellington is Hoff worthy; Grilled Wedge Salad with a Razzitini and specialty soup of the day; popular Cheese Bombs and bruschetta make good appetizers; Chicken Roulade; owners Jimmy and Beatrice, photographed during more hopeful times before the full effects of COVID-19 became apparent. dish, the Angus Beef Wellington.

This labor intensive dish takes a fine steak and raises it several notches. I honestly could not believe how good it was. It starts with a generous round of filet mignon which is spread with Boursin cheese and topped with prosciutto. After grilling to perfection, the steak is wrapped in a beautiful cloak of puff pastry and baked to a golden crisp.

You don’t even need a steak knife to cut into it. Presented on a bed of mashed potatoes and asparagus dancing in just the right amount of red wine reduction, this dish should go down in the Marshall County Culinary Hall of Fame The second entrée we shared was the

grilled mahi-mahi, which tasted like it came straight out of the ocean. That flavor took me straight back to my hometown New Orleans with its steady diet of fresh seafood perfectly cooked. The flaky tenderness of the fish indicated the chef took it out of the pan at exactly the right time. Served atop rice and colorful sautéed peppers, I just couldn’t stop.

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ther choices include the Chicken Roulade, Crispy Orange Glazed Salmon, Herb Crusted Pecan Chicken, Bacon Wrapped Shrimp, Lobster Ravioli, Pan Seared Snapper, Black Peppercorn Tuna, filet, ribeye and porterhouse steaks.

Making the meal extra nice, Beatrice

paired each course with a complementary wine. She chose a chilled Rosé to start, a sauvignon blanc followed that, a dry red wine accompanied the beef and a Moscato champagne starred as dessert wine.

Desserts were absolutely over the top.

The crème brulee was a light and creamy dream. The bananas foster took me straight back to dining in New Orleans again.

But the show stopper had to be the cheesecake made with Toblerone, a Swiss chocolate bar in the shape of triangular prisms, which top the delicacy. The richness is enhanced by the crispy spun sugar glistening on top. Heaven on a plate.

Good Life Magazine

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The Brindleys fell in love... then they fell in love with this house The tornado of 1908 ripped off the front porch of the house. Prior to that, the front door entered into the room on the right, now a guest bedroom. Along with trees that canopied East Main, the tornado of 2010 took out a 120-year-old dogwood, two pecans in the front and another one in the backyard.

Story and photos

By David Moore

T

In 1819, Mace, then 18, led an oxdrawn wagon that moved his mother and eight siblings to a new life in Blount County, which then encompassed most of North Alabama. A sharp young man, he soon became chief clerk in the Blount County Probate Judge’s Office and later probate judge and the county’s first state senator.

Today, it’s going stronger than ever with eight employees, three pharmacists, and plans in the works for a new location on Sand Mountain Drive.

“We still have that mom and pop feel,” Steven says.

And a little history, too. Some of his older patients recall shopping back in the day at Brindley Grocery, owned by his grandfather, Ed.

heir love grew daily, heavy breathing and all. Seriously. Every morning they’d go out and run three miles through Albertville. East Main was part of their route and took them past the singlestory Victorian with three front gables built in 1899.

And so Steven Brindley essica, daughter of and Jessica Smith, in love Michelle and Terry Harvey and engaged at the time, and William Smith grew also fell in love with the old up in the Snead community house, even as they huffed just south of Marshall and puffed past it.

County, spending a lot of “We bragged on the time on the 40-acre farm of house every time we passed her grandparents, Wayne it,” Jessica says. “We loved and Joyce Noles. it.”

Like Steven, Jessica got At the time, the house a pharmacy job at age 16, in was owned by Mike and her case through her mom, Marie McCollum. Over the a shift supervisor at CVS in years, Jessica and Steven Albertville. She went on to had been inside separately: graduate from Susan Moore he helped cater a few in 2010, and continued events; she visited during a working in the field of girls’ night out with Marie. pharmacy until 2017, Mike – known as an when she pursued her true Albertville “real estate Jessica and Steven Brindley, pictured in the right side of the front passion. Jessica became a icon” and co-founder room, have fallen in love with their house. One of his adventures Scentsy consultant in 2011, of ReMax – and Marie a direct sales company had made a number of was reassembling the huge cabinet, at left, which was out to fill the world with improvements over time shipped from an out-of-state antique store. fragrance. without detracting from Jessica continues her their home’s inherently Scentsy work today from aged graces.

In addition to exploring much of the her home office. She’s made a huge splash Jessica and Steven talked as they area, Mace settled in what is now the with her sales, ranking in the company’s jogged by about how completely cool it Simcoe community in Cullman County, top 100 out of 150,000 consultants would be to live there, but it was, they built and operated two toll pikes, was worldwide and earning incentive trips were sure, a complete fantasy. Houses on director of the State National Bank of both nationally and internationally.

East Main – many of them historic, like Decatur, and served as state tax collector.

“I did find my calling – that was the McCollum’s – seldom sprouted for Steven is the son of Mike and Angie helping other people become financially sale signs.

Brindley of Albertville; his brother, Paul, stable and debt free,” Jessica says.

But against all odds, their fantasy lives with his family in Tennessee. At age “Having not been to college, that was the came true.

16, Steven got a job in a pharmacy and security that I wanted. “ And it happened far sooner than their knew that’s what he wanted to do before Scentsy notwithstanding, it was – wildest dreams might have conjured. graduating in 2004 from Albertville. perhaps not too surprisingly – through “I saw some of the impact pharmacy pharmacy that they met. istory, it bears saying, runs deeply could have on people’s lives,” he says. in Steven’s family, as evidenced by the He also knew he wanted to return to n July 2012, after five years at existence of the Brindley International Albertville, which he did after earning CVS, Jessica and Steven started working Historical Foundation. His ancestors his doctor of pharmacy from Auburn together at Brindley’s Family Pharmacy. were among the earliest settlers in the University’s Harrison School of Pharmacy “He had a stereo in his little Maxima region, one of them being Mace Thomas and thought he was cool,” she banters.

Payne Brindley, the namesake of Brindley in 2011.

That October, he started Brindley’s Steven snorts.

Mountain in Marshall and Cullman As a certified pharmacy tech and counties.

Family Pharmacy on Carlisle Street.

H

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J

I

The house has about 4,200 square feet and features original oak floors in many rooms along with 12-f00t ceilings.

The left side of the front room, above, has doors leading into a guest room, left, which they hope to convert this year into a den with a wet bar, and their formal dining room, below.

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35

his only full time employee (other than his dad, who was a driver), Jessica did everything from cleaning toilets to compounding medications. “And counting to 30,” they laugh, referring to the fact that most prescriptions call for 30 doses.

“It was just the two of us,” he says. “We wore all of the hats. I cleaned toilets, too.”

Their first date was six months in coming and was unplanned. Well, maybe.

Steven said he needed to do some specialty Christmas shopping at the mall in Leeds and suggested that Jessica tag along.

“I told him no, and he said we could take his new convertible,” she laughs. “I fell for it.”

“No,” Steven insists. “It was my charm!”

“He thought he was something and a bag of chips,” Jessica retorts. “But his parents are precious, and I wanted to buy them a Christmas gift.”

So they packed into the BMW. “We had a blast,” Jessica says. “He cracked me up. We laughed more than I had ever laughed and ate Chinese food, my guilty pleasure.”

“From that day forward,” she confesses, “we didn’t spend many days apart.”

I

n June 2016, Jessica invited Steven to join her and two of their friends on a Scentsy trip she’d earned to Disney World. He conspired with their friends – Trey and Holley Christian – to make the most of it.

Steven rented a boat for them all to take out one night to watch the grand finale fireworks. In the midst of the pyrotechnics, he planned to take a knee, propose, and offer Jessica a ring.

“He was nervous all night,” she snickers.

By the time Trey suggested they both stand in front of the boat for a photo, Jessica had an inkling of what was about to happen … and it came true as fireworks exploded over Cinderella’s Castle behind them.

Turns out they were not done with castles. Jessica and Steven married April 22, 2017 at Cook Castle in Fort Payne.

While not a castle, they’d been running every morning before work since 2015 past the McCollum House – their dream house – on East Main.

When the McCollums decided to 36

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downsize in early 2017, knowing how much Jessica and Steven admired their house, Marie called and told them it was for sale.

A few days later, she and Mike gave them the grand tour.

“During the three-hour tour, we learned the history of the home and all the characteristics of it,” Steven says.

Not that it was necessary, but “Mike did a heck of a sales job.”

B

The previous owners remodeled the kitchen and built a wing with a garage and a second-floor master bedroom suite, top right. Jessica converted a part of the suite into her Scentsy workshop. The old part of the house includes a study and the “blue room,” left, one of their favorites.

eyond all of the charm and character of the grand old house, a key selling point was the renovations Mike and Marie had made, including an upscale bathroom in the right side of the house and a two-story addition to the left side that created a garage with a master bedroom suite above it, walk-in closets and a work and storage room for Jessica’s lucrative Scentsy business.

The house was all they could have hoped for.

“We did not need to buy a project,” Steven says, not with them working full time.

“I needed it move-in ready,” Jessica adds.

So they moved in March.

Sadly, Mike McCollum died July 26, 2017, at Shephard’s Cove, where Marie was a former president of the hospice board of directors. He was 68.

“She is like a young grandmother to me,” Jessica says of Marie. “I love her.”

Past that sadness, the Brindleys have found much happiness and joy in their old home.

Their graciously large deck and patio overlook an immense backyard and beg for entertaining, which they enjoy. So they share their home with friends from a variety of backgrounds they’ve met over time.

Two blowouts have already become annual events. The Friday before Christmas brings together a crowd of 5060 revelers for holiday joy.

Their egg hunt on the Saturday before Easter attracts some 70 folks. The men hide tons of eggs, 35 kids hunt them for hours and the women laugh and catch up on life on the back deck.

I

t’s become part of the Brindleys’ home, and they a part of the community – and, perhaps especially with Steven,

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37

it’s a part of his roots. He feels a tie to neighboring Brindley Mountain along with the family’s historic association.

It’s also special, he says, to come home and start a business in Albertville, where he grew up.

“I knew I loved the town and people in the surrounding communities.” With a grin toward Jessica, Steven adds, “And I wish I had known her sooner.”

“Ahhh …” she says.

“There is, sense of community.

There are people who helped raise me,” he says. “And to be able to give back to them is important. We couldn’t do what she does or what I do without the support of our community.

We couldn’t do any of it without the support of our community.”

That includes living in a house that’s been a part of Albertville for 121 years.

“And we have not had to add anything to it yet,” Jessica says.

“That makes me nervous,” Steven injects,” using the word ‘yet.’”

Good Life Magazine 38

Most of the 1.5-acre lot stretches into a huge – especially by downtown standards – backyard. A terraced patio is great for entertaining. The back of the house shows the two-story garage with an upstairs master suite, on the right, which the McCollums added in 1996. It’s accessed by stairs in the large windowed “Christmas tree room.”

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Good Getaways

Life is Amazing – not to mention fun – with a visit to the Cook Museum of Natural Science

Story and photos

by David Moore

“L

ife is Amazing.” “Discover Something Amazing.”

These slogans show up everywhere at the Cook Museum of Natural Science in downtown Decatur.

But you don’t spend long at all there before the kids around you demonstrate another important aspect of the museum – it’s fun!

From live snakes, turtles, baby gators and bookoodles of bugs to creating lava-flowing volcanoes at a kinetic sand table and exploring inside a replica beaver lodge and a cave, exhibits galore await your kid – or grandkid – at every turn in this beautifully designed, 62,000-square foot state-of-the-art museum.

The amazement factor derives from the Cook family’s intrigue with the marvels of nature.

In 1928, John L. Cook of Decatur started what grew to become Cook’s Pest Control in six states. Secondgeneration John R. Cook Sr. in the 1960s had a large insect collection in a company warehouse.

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AUGUST | SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2020

Amazing exhibits await discovery around every corner of the Cook Museum.

Kids build mounds of kinetic sand that, with the help of laser lights, turn into lavaflowing volcanoes.

Elsewhere, they get an introduction to space. A 15,000-gallon saltwater aquarium offers a view of life under the water. The $32 million facility will mark its first full year this June.

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A couple of girls dare to play with a replica alligator in an area dedicated to rivers and streams. In the background is a beaver lodge you can crawl inside. Another area allows you to explore a forest, including crossing a swinging bridge to the inside of the canopy of “Big Tree.”

Below, an Arctic fox chases Arctic hares.

“The community caught wind of it, and the family let people come in to see it,” says marketing manager Mike Taylor.

It proved so popular that in 1980 John Sr. built a separate building for the collection, which drew 750,000 visitors through 2016.

At that point, the family closed it and began planning today’s museum.

It opened June 2019 and in less than two months drew 40,000 visitors – not including school field trips and such.

That’s a lot of people discovering how fun and amazing life and natural science can be. On top of all that fun, a visit to Cook museum turns out to be extremely educational.

Good Life Magazine

If you visit ...

Re-opened July 8 to the general public, the museum is limiting capacity and using time-slot ticketing among other coronavirus safety measures. Call to reserve tickets or purchase online.

Located at 133 4th Ave NE in Decatur, Cook Museum of Natural Science is open 9 a.m.

- 5 p.m. Monday-Friday; 9 a.m. - 6 p.m. Saturday; noon to 5 p.m. Sunday.

Tickets (without tax) are $20 ages 15 and older, $15, free 2 and under; military and seniors are $17; groups of 15 and more are $17 adults, $13 children.

A shop and cafe are in the building. For more info and special events, such as animal feedings: cookmuseum.org.; 256-351-4505.

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Here’s what happens when southern pot-belly stove storytellers in country stores turn to tales of sneaky snakes ... and get on a roll Copyrighted ink drawing by Richard Svensson. He’s from the South, too ... the village of Bräkne-Hoby in southern Sweden. The image is used with his permission.

Story by Steve A. Maze

T

he South has always produced its fair share of snake stories. One of the best places I ever heard these stories was from pot-bellied men sitting around a pot-bellied stove at old country stores.

Stories would usually center around the largest snake someone had seen. Of course, it wasn’t unusual to hear about giant rattlesnakes that reached an exaggerated eight to 10 feet long. Of course, these monsters were obligated to have 20 rattles and a button on the end of their tail.

The storytelling would then drift off to more unusual specimens they had personally encountered such as the coachwhip, bull snake, milk snake, hoop snake and joint snakes.

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According to the old-timers, the coachwhip is a non-poisonous snake that is black in color and reaches up to six feet in length. Its most unusual trait is the scales on its tail, which appear to be braided or plaited, resembling the leather whips people once used while riding in a buggy.

The snake is known to wrap itself around the leg of a person or animal, and whip its prey with the plaited tail. The tail administers a stinging blow, and the frightened prey can run itself to death with the snake still wrapped around its leg.

A

nother intriguing species is the milk snake, which has many of the physical characteristics of a black racer.

In fact, some people say it is a black racer.

The snake is said to have a fetish for milk

AUGUST | SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2020

and will slither up to a pet’s bowl to flick at the nectar with its tongue. The tale most associated with this particular scaly reptile is that it will “milk” a cow.

A farmer once claimed that his cow produced the same amount of milk every morning before she was turned out to pasture, but was dry when he went to milk her each evening. After this happened for several days, he followed to see what was happening.

When she stopped at a creek, he stared in amazement as a black snake raised its head, attached itself to the cow’s udder and milked it, moving from one teat to the other. Mystery solved, the farmer claimed.

The bull snake grows up to five feet in length, and has a yellow-brown or cream colored skin with black and brown markings. Its small head is equipped

snake. It is about five feet in length with a black narrow body. Its bite is non-poisonous, but it’s claimed to have a spike – or stinger – on the end of its tail that is supposedly deadly.

The most unusual characteristic of the snake is its uncanny ability to form its body into the shape of a barrel hoop. Actually, it resembles a bicycle tire more than a barrel hoop … at least from what I have been told.

There are two theories as to how it rolls itself into a circular form. The first has the snake grabbing its tail by its mouth and forming a circle so it can roll up on its edge.

The second theory has the serpent holding its tail up into the air and gradually bending it over until a circle is formed. That enables a hoop snake lying at the top of a hill to roll down to the bottom where water might be found.

After the snake gains speed, the spike becomes deadly. A person struck by the stinger will supposedly swell to an unbelievable size and suffer a horrible death.

Several people also told me they had seen a tree struck by the spike. The leaves immediately began to wilt and the tree died within 24 hours.

That’s why most old-timers believe the snake bends the tail over to form a circle. It would be hard to strike a person or tree with the stinger in the snake’s mouth.

P

with a large nose shield that enables it to dig for burrowing mice and other mammals.

The snake’s most unusual trait is that it makes a loud hissing noise and is sometimes mistaken for a rattlesnake. Old-timers will tell you that it “blows” hard enough to part the grass on the ground. The noise resembles a snorting bull, thus the name bull snake.

One farmer recalled a day when he and his father encountered a bull snake while cutting sugarcane. The son had walked over to the edge of a thicket where a jug of water sat in the shade, and at that moment a startled bull snake reared its head like a cobra and began blowing.

The young man’s father came running with a scythe he was using to cut the sugarcane, but the snake slithered away at great speed before meeting its demise.

A

nother fascinating serpent is the hoop

erhaps the most fascinating of these unusual reptiles is the joint snake. It is nonpoisonous, dark brown in color, and grows to be more than four feet long. The snake is “jointed,” and these joints will break up into separate pieces when struck by a stick or automobile.

“They just fly to pieces,” an old-timer said.

Becoming disjointed is simply a defense mechanism to fool the aggressor into thinking it is dead. After taking on the appearance of a broken jigsaw puzzle, it is said the snake will “reassemble” the joints and slither away.

Some say the serpent will reassemble after an hour or two, but others say the process takes 24 hours. The snake is also said to hunt down its separated joints so they can be reassembled in the correct order.

I realize some of the snake stories spun around a pot-bellied stove might have been embellished.

Most of these old-timers believed the unbelievable encounters with these rare reptiles because they knew someone who had seen them … or they claimed to have seen them in person.

I guess you will have to make up your own mind as to whether you believe them as fact. And a lot of that might depend on whether a coach whip has ever gotten hold of your leg.

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One of the early players in the county, Kimberly Chandler of the Albertville area, teams up with Dan Lueker of Arab for Saturday Pickleball at the Guntersville Rec Center just prior to its shutting down as a coronavirus safety precaution.

Playing Pickleball Story and photos

By David Moore

S

teve Douglas did not bring pickles when he moved from Atlanta to Warrenton in 2006. He did, however, bring a desire to play pickleball.

Although it was a fast-growing sport, as far as he knows there was nowhere in Marshall County to play, and no one to play it with.

For those who still don’t know, the game of pickleball was concocted from elements of tennis, badminton, racquetball and ping-pong with a twist of Wiffle ball tossed in for good measure. It’s played indoors or out on a badminton-sized court using a modified tennis net over which you swat a plastic ball with holes in it using 46

In case you were wondering, it’s a fun

concoction of tennis, badminton, racquetball

and ping-pong... with a twist of Wiffle ball tossed in

what appear to be oversized, squared-away ping-pong paddles.

Folks play for some combination of fun, the rush of competition or because it’s a sneaky way to be active without dreading exercise.

As Steve talks about his favorite game, 20 or so people whacked the bright yellow, Wiffle-like balls back and forth inside the Guntersville Parks and Recreation Center in the days before COVID-19 exploded.

Now 76, he first heard about pickleball at The Villages, a 20 square-mile, planned development for those 55 and older in Central Florida. Among the amenities are some 120 pickleball courts.

“I was a racquetball player and was just totally impressed with the game,” Steve says.

AUGUST | SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2020

Even so, it took him a while to get around to playing pickleball. He was still young enough to enjoy racquetball with his friends.

But in early 2014, Steve recruited a racquetball buddy to join him in pickleball, Trudy Chaille, then of Guntersville.

They got permission to tape off a court on the general-purpose tiled floor at the Guntersville rec center.

D

espite pickleball’s growing interest nationwide, no one else locally showed any interest. Besides, Steve says, the tiled floors at the rec centers did not work well with the balls of that day.

Still itching to play, Steve took matters into his own hands and built a pickleball court in his driveway at home.

“I had a perfect place,” he says. “On weekends we’d have parties and soon there were eight to 10 folks playing pickleball.”

They invited their friends to join the fun, and the group grew.

Pickleball interest jumped a few years later when people from Marshall County RSVP began playing, including Poppy Moon and Carol Langley. Steve and an avid player from Huntsville put on a pickleball program that was promoted in the RSVP newsletter.

Phil Moss of Arab, a racquetball friend of Steve’s joined, and today he’s called the group’s trainer.

With Steve leading the way, pickleball made a successful return to the Guntersville rec center. The group played with portable nets easily removed so other sports could share the public courts. Two tennis courts were also marked off for pickleball.

With interest growing, in 2019 the city built four permanent outside courts at Civitan Park. If needed, a fifth one can be set up at the old basketball court there.

T

oday, the regular players range from 55 to 80 years old.

“Age is an aspect of the game,” Steve says. “But there are a lot of ‘old’ people out here being very competitive with one another.

“For me, exercise comes first for my reasons to play. There is mental exercise, too. You have to think about what you’re doing, use a little strategy.

“But the surprise about the game,” he continues, “is the social aspect it promotes. I had no idea.”

Prior to COVID, informal groups would go to Sakura Japanese Steakhouse or another restaurant after games on Tuesday, or sometimes players might get together for a beer.

Butch and Sheila Norckauer of Point of Pines are among those who became avid pickleball players. He’d had brain surgery recently and a couple of previous heart attacks, but that doesn’t faze his enthusiasm, and Sheila was playing again within five or six weeks after separate hip transplants.

“It’s a great sport and you can make it about as active as you want,” Butch says.

“There are players that can hardly move, and others who would dive at the ball.”

Such is the draw of pickleball.

A

ccording to various sources,

Kimberly Chandler makes an impressive save with an over-the-shoulder volley, above. She lives in Hampton Cove but plays pickleball in Guntersville where her parents, Randy and Trish Hoerth, also play.

Steve Douglas, left, makes a serve at one of Guntersville Parks and Recreation’s four outdoor courts across from the Church of the Epiphany on Sunset Drive.

AUGUST | SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2020

47

Dawn McCoy of Guntersville, left, wears a shirt attesting that pickleball is no big “dill,” but her intensity says otherwise. Curtis Combs and Joe Peanasky, right, of Guntersville shoot it out with Randy Hoerth and his daughter, not pictured, Kimberly Chandler.

Pickleball was invented in 1965 by three dads who would ferry their families from Seattle to spend weekends at second homes on nearby Bainbridge Island.

One typically wet day the kids got bored and started complaining about nothing to do. Joel Pritchard, a congressman from Washington, and Bill Bell, a successful businessman, took action. Scrounging around, they found an old badminton net, a rough set of pingpong paddles and a Wiffle ball.

Thus armed, the dads took the kids outside to an aging, asphalt badminton court and said to swat the ball around.

Competition, naturally, led to keeping score, which necessitated rules.

Barney McCallum joined the fun the following weekend.

“I’m down there playing this … thing,” he recalls on YouTube. “This is on a Saturday. Then the next day I couldn’t get out of bed fast enough to go down there and play.”

The new game took on a world of 48

its own as they tried scoring methods of other sports, including tennis. Rules were developed on an as-needed basis. For instance, another dad, Dick Brown, was a tall guy who too easily racked up points by charging the net and spiking the ball.

So the “kitchen” line was invented.

Dick – and everyone else – had to stay behind it.

B

arney quickly realized ping-pong paddles were too small and broke too easily, so he cut out a pattern and cut out larger, but simple paddles from plywood.

Though the game was meant for all ages, it wasn’t long before the parents’ enthusiasm monopolized it. Pickleball, they found, was fun exercise, and they could be as competitive as they wanted.

After the Seattle families deserted Bainbridge Island that fall, Barney discovered the 20-foot width of his street worked great for length of the court, and so pickleball took to the streets.

Barney and Joel’s wife, Joan, have

AUGUST | SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2020

differing stories as to the origins of the game’s name.

Joan was a competitive rower on a crew boat in college. “Pickle boat” is an obscure term from the sport.

In choosing rowing teams, the best oarsmen were picked first. The leftover, mismatched rowers crewed the socalled pickle boat. With the new game’s mismatched mix of sports, Joan thought pickleball was an appropriate name.

Barney contends the game was named after the Pritchards’ cockapoo puppy, Pickles, who was fond of chasing and running off with the plastic ball. He remembers everyone sitting around the Pritchards’ cabin applauding and toasting the name.

E

ither way, pickleball has grown and is now played by more than 2.5 million people. Through the USA Pickleball Association, leagues and tournaments are set up for amateurs and pros, and the sport continues to grow.

Steve says their group – Pickleball on the Lake – welcomes those still unfamiliar to the growing sport.

“Everybody is willing to play with new players,” he says.

Rules are simple, and you can play at your comfort level. And play at the local courts listed below is free, just bring your own balls and paddle: • Arab Parks and Recreation – Fri. 10 a.m. – noon; Sat 9 a.m. – noon (April thru September); bring your own paddle and balls; up to two courts; for more info: 256-586-6793.

• Gilliam Springs Baptist Church, U.S. 231, Arab – Court closed due to COVID; for more info: 256-586-3147.

• Guntersville Parks and Recreation Center – Indoor courts at rec center closed due to COVID, but outdoor courts at Civitan Park are open. Scheduled play is 8–11 a.m. Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.

For more info on pickleball: Pickleball on the Lake Facebook page; or call Steve Douglas: 256-677-7301. No longer alone in the local pickleball world, he’ll be glad to add you to his pickleball newsletter.

Good Life Magazine

Butch Norckauer, one of the more serious players in the Pickleball on the Lake group, holds up a medal he won this past spring at a tournament. He and Phil Moss of Arab often travel and play as a team in the 70-and-over division. Among other events, they took first place at a charity tourney in Huntsville.

Last year in Opelika they placed third among 277 tourney entrants.

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Where love and patience replace euthanasia in an effort to find good homes for abandoned and stray dogs and cats

Second Chance Animal Shelter

Story and photos

By David Moore

S

ad to say, but you don’t have to love a dog or a cat to own one. That’s why places such as Second Chance Animal Shelter in Boaz exist … too many unloved animals.

But to operate Second Chance or any such non-profit shelter – whether it’s a no-kill facility or not – does require people who love dogs and cats. All dogs and cats. Even those hard to love.

Likewise, if you operate such a shelter with your spouse, you best love that person, too. A lot.

And it probably helps if you’re both a little crazy.

Some folks know Doug and Wanda McGee, Second Chance founders and owners, as “the crazy dog people.” And “crazy” may well predate the dogs. They met at the Albertville Police station when Doug arrested Wanda. And then nobly bonded her out.

Full disclosure: Wanda then manager of McDonald’s in Albertville, had been “arrested” as part of a jail and bail fundraiser for muscular dystrophy. During the event, Doug arrested her at work at and took her to “jail.” She had to make phone calls to raise her bail money.

“I gave her $5,” he grins. “It was all I had.”

Nothing says I love you like a sorely needed Lincoln.

The family lore moment held no harbingers of their life to come … well, not unless those jail bars symbolize the 233 dogs that today wait in cages at the shelter for a kind soul to pay their $40 adoption fee and take them to the loving home that’s so far evaded them.

T

Wanda McGee loves on Angel, the office dog at Second Chance for 10 years.

The shelter is Angel’s home … pretty much Wanda’s, too.

he McGees met in 2005; married in 2006.

On their honeymoon to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, they actually had a “what if” talk regarding animal shelters. The true harbinger came when they returned home to find two black Lab puppies on their porch.

“It should have been an indicator that we would have something to do with dogs,” Doug says.

More puppies squirmed unsought into the McGees’ lives one evening in May 2008.

Wanda was then a customer service rep at BancorpSouth. Doug, in his 16th year with the APD, was filling in as dispatcher when he took a call on six puppies someone dumped in a yard on Gethsemane Road. Protocol called for animal control, but Doug knew the city euthanized some 80-90 strays and unwanted dogs a month.

“I knew as soon as animal control picked them up, they would die.” So instead he called his wife. “Can I get these puppies and bring them home?”

AUGUST | SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2020

51

Like-hearted Wanda said yes.

The pups were a cute, mixed breed, maybe 10 weeks old. The McGees took them to Collinsville Trade Day where they were quickly adopted.

As Doug tells this story from the office, Wanda, the “heart and soul” of Second Chance, is outside working in the pens. You can hear the clamoring barking of the crazy canine choir.

D

oug finishes the puppy story. “That started it. It just kinda’ went crazy from there.”

Then there was Toby, a black Newfoundland with a Houdini propensity for escaping. The McGees found him a home in Pell City. Other unwanted dogs followed suit, and eventually that what-if honeymoon talk turned serious.

And so it was, that on May 1, 2008, they began taking dogs at the shelter on land Wanda’s Gregg family owned off U.S. 168 north of Boaz. Funded from their own pockets, the homemade pens were nothing fancy, but they answered a need for unwanted dogs.

There was never a debate about operating any way other than as a no-kill shelter.

“Wanda made it clear we would never kill an animal on the property,” Doug says.

At the end of 2009 Doug and Wanda received nonprofit status, and by May 2011 they housed 100 dogs.

After working bank and police jobs, they came home and worked dog pens, drained by the time all of the mouths and pens were fed and cleaned at night.

“We were exhausted,” Doug says. “We both just started crying. We knew it would kill us.”

Finally they agreed that Wanda would leave the bank to work the dogs; Doug would support them on his police check. But their relationship continued deteriorating.

“She was stuck here all day while I was goofing off at the police department – and that’s supposed to be one of the most stressful jobs,” Doug says. “It got to the point where tension was not working.”

E

Doug McGee, top, hugs a cute little buddy. Volunteer Gigi Hulgan, center, gives Moses some attention. It’s been a good year for Second Chance; starting with some 270 dogs in January, it has given away about 70 more than it’s taken in.

52

AUGUST | SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2020

ventually, the McGees had a come-to-Jesus meeting in the kitchen of their former trailer.

“As a trial, I said I’d quit my job for six months and give it all we’ve got,” Doug says. “I told her, ‘You know, if we do this, we could end up homeless living in a box.’ It was one of the few moments of my life I remember with clarity.”

“Well,” Wanda had replied, “it’d better be a big box.”

They laughed. And the plan took.

“With us both on the same sheet of music, we could do anything,” Doug says. “One of us could not do it, but two of us as a team … We went out on a limb together and it really worked.”

It still wasn’t easy. Second Chance Shelter grew by leaps and barks. Nearly every morning Wanda and Doug found a box of puppies outside the fence or a

Zafira and Brittany Perez hug at top right. Technically, the dogs are free to good homes. The $40 adoption fee covers the mandatory spaying or neutering. tied-up dog. It was out of control. By 2013, they peaked at 459 dogs.

The McGees came under negative scrutiny from an Albertville business. A person affiliated with the business wrote letters to officials. The shelter is located just inside DeKalb County, and a DeKalb deputy told them they had too many dogs.

“People said it’s animal cruelty,” Doug says, hurt still in his eyes. “That we needed to start killing them. But that was off the table. We said the dogs were fed and kept up as good as we could. ‘Take me to jail.’

“It looked like we were hoarders, but we weren’t,” he continues. “Once the dogs were here, we didn’t have the heart to send them off. That’s the bottom line. I let them get out of control. But Wanda would put me down before she let me put a dog down.”

R

esponding to complaints, DeKalb County District Attorney Mike O’Dell made a surprise visit to Second Chance. According to a story in the Fort Payne Times Journal, he found no signs of cruelty but instead volunteers helping care for the dogs and two shelter owners who obviously loved animals.

The DA did tell them to reduce their numbers and said he would make follow-up visits.

The reduction came from a seemingly unlikely source – Northerners from Wisconsin and elsewhere. Wanda began networking with them, and the Northerners would drive down monthly to transport neutered dogs for adoption back home.

“I am grateful they still take them,”

Doug says. “But it bothers me that we are not handling our own problems. I am tired of Alabama being 49th and 50th in everything but football. Humane animal issues are an area we can do better.”

Between these outside and local adoptions, Second Chance averages finding homes for 120-130 dogs a month. Last year, those adoption fees generated about 16 percent of the shelter’s $250,000 in donations and grants.

“It sounds like a lot of money, but it is really not,” Doug says.

Besides food and supplies, that also covers six full-time and three to four part-time employees. Further help comes from volunteers, court-ordered inmates and those doing community service.

Second Chance gets grants of

AUGUST | SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2020

53

$1,000-$10,000 from businesses and others, plus they have several generous benefactors across the county, Doug says.

“Most of our money comes from big-hearted people who just like to help,” he says. “We get lots of $25 and $50 donations. We sure have a good community. It’s amazing how much support we get around here.”

I

t’s hard for any detractors to claim Wanda and Doug run the shelter to get rich. He makes $5.76 per hour while she makes $6.75.

“She is worth more,” he laughs. “But I don’t want people to say, ‘Oh, those poor people.’ We are not that kind of people.

We have everything we need in the world.

My payoff is not money. My payoff is that I’m excited about living.”

More money for the shelter and employees, however, would be nice.

“It’s not the Taj Mahal. We do what we can with what we have,” Doug says.

“But I want it to be better. I want to be the premier shelter in the state.”

Though some might criticize their approach, he and Wanda insist that a “premier shelter” is a no-kill shelter.

A dog awaits a rescue that may or may not come. The shelter is located off Ala. 168, just outside Marshall County at 130 Co. Rd. 398, Boaz 35957. For more info on adoptions or volunteering, visit: www.secondchanceshelter.net; or call 256-561-2411.

“We don’t think it’s good for an animal to have to sit in pens,” Doug says. “But we think as long as the dog is alive, he has

a good chance to get a good home. Once he’s dead, it’s over.”

Good Life Magazine

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Robert O.

’Tis said that some cultures, especially in the early days of cameras, believed a bit of your soul was stolen when someone photographed you.

In the case of Robert O. Johnson the opposite is perhaps more likely. Through the process of taking a picture, he may have gifted a bit of his soul to his subject in the photo, and it lingers there in the paper until the last of the chemical-induced image fades away to nothing.

“I absolutely think that’s the case,” agrees Marsha Yeilding, daughter of the Albertville photographer.

Known as Robert O., for 61 years he photographed people and events across Sand Mountain and beyond – including portraits of Alabama governors, President Jimmy Carter and his mother – thus perhaps sharing a bit of his soul while touching the lives of legions.

“I would say it had to be thousands he touched by the time you take into account all of the class pictures and all of the large groups and weddings,” says Dennis Burgess, a long-time friend. “It was easily in the thousands. The stamp he placed on Albertville history cannot be measured. I look back in time, and it’s hard to fathom.”

If Robert O.’s photography touched many lives, then the flash did not fire far from the camera.

His father, J. Willie Johnson, moved to Albertville from St. Clair County days after the “cyclone” of 1908 turned much of the town into matchsticks. As reported in the first part of this two-part story, J. Willie came to open a photography studio, and for at least 40 years shot pictures of countless people and events across Sand Mountain.

Robert O., the youngest of his five children, worked in the studio as a young boy.

“At first I didn’t like it much because I had jobs like sweeping and cleaning up,” Robert O. said in a 1991 story in The Sand Mountain Reporter.

That changed.

A

fter graduating from Albertville High School in 1942, Robert O. served in World War II aboard a submarine tender.

56

Story by David Moore Photos provided by Dennis Burgess and Marsha Johnson Yeilding It was years before he talked about the war, says Marsha, now of Vestavia, and even then he never mentioned any interest in photography during WWII. “But he always knew he would come back and go into that business,” she says.

In 1946-1948, he studied photography at what was part of the former University of Chattanooga, then returned home to work with J. Willie.

Wedding photos were a staple for them.

“When I first started, my biggest territory was Gadsden in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s,” Robert O. said in a Gadsden Times story printed for his retirement in March 2009.

Gregarious by nature, Robert O. enjoyed shooting these and other social engagements, but he absolutely loved shooting school photos, especially for his alma mater.

“Whether they were portraits of students, clubs, events or sports, he was at the high school every day shooting pictures,” Marsha says. “I think his lifeline was young kids … they kept him young.”

Albertville’s yearbook, “The Mountaineer,” was a beneficiary of Robert O.’s photography from 19481989.

“The yearbooks won a lot of state awards with his professional photography in them,” Marsha says.

His work was appreciated. In 1998, AHS honored the photographer for 50 years of service. And in 2011 he was

AUGUST | SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2020

inducted into the inaugural class of the Albertville High School Hall of Fame.

T

wo other avenues through which countless people came face to face with the lenses of Robert O.’s Crown Graphic, Hasselblad and Nikon cameras were The Sand Mountain Reporter and the former Albertville Herald.

His photos in this story came from his years at the Herald. When it was absorbed by the Reporter in 1964, at least some of the Herald’s archives went to Jack Thompson, who took over the building for his print shop, says Dennis.

Jack and Dennis, a former director for Adams Funeral Home, were friends.

Knowing Dennis’s love of local history, Jack later bequeathed to him 100-150 of Robert O.’s photos from the Herald.

“I took over his picture archives,” says Dennis, who shared the images with GLM. “As long as they fell into good hands and they would be taken care of, which I have sought to do.”

Dennis was also friends with Robert O., making the transfer all the more fitting.

Robert O. also provided news, sports, social and advertising photos to the Reporter for years and was close to former publisher Pat Courington and newly named publisher Shannon Allen, a longtime sports editor.

Interestingly, Marsha says, her father wasn’t paid for his many newspaper photos. Rather, he did it to market himself and was glad to work for photo credits and free ads for his studio.

F

or the record, “O.” stands for Owen. Robert Johnson, Marsha

Robert O. has two children, Bob, the youngest, who lives in Atlanta, and Marsha, above. For her dad’s 90th birthday, she card-bombed him. “I went to Dollar General and bought every cheap card,” she laughs. “I gave them out to people and said mail them to his house.” Delighted, he ended up with about 150 cards. “It was like something he would do to make people happy,” she says. The photo at left shows Robert O. dancing with Virginia Hodges of Hartford, which is near Dothan. According to Robert’s nephew Randy Johnson, they met in 1947, got engaged at Christmas 1948 and married July 1949 shortly after the photo was taken. Virginia was supportive of Robert O. over the years, helping him in the darkroom at night, working as his receptionist and managing the business side of the studio for him. Virginia died in 2006. “She was,” Marsha says, “the sweetest, most giving and unselfish person to all of us and my children.”

AUGUST | SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2020

57

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theorizes, is a common name, but as a way to market himself her dad decided to go by Robert O. (J. Willie probably also influenced the use of his initial.)

As far as Marsha knows, her father was the first to shoot what later became an almost standard photo of a wedding party jumping up in the air.

“Marketing” his East Main Street studio – where friends often came to chat – he often daubed messages on his windows with white shoe polish, such as greetings to a bride coming in for pictures.

A big Auburn fan, Robert O. got a lot of mileage out of a Bear Bryant quote – “I hate it for the seniors” – one year after they lost to Auburn. It later appeared on his windows whenever Bama lost … anything to draw attention to the studio.

“Being innovative kept him going business-wise,” Marsha says. “He knew he had to promote himself to make a living. He worked hard, seven days a week, to provide for his family. He made an average wage, but it turned out OK. “His profession gave him a lot of pleasure.”

There were, however, times Robert O. was at least mildly put out.

At one wedding the pastor presumed to offer him some photography advice.

Proud of his professionalism, Robert O. pointed out that he’d not offered the pastor any advice on how to conduct the ceremony.

As personal cameras grew common, he would pose groups of kids for a picture only to have mothers gather behind him to shoot, too.

“He wanted everyone focused on his camera and not their mom’s,” Marsha says.

“It will take me five minutes,” Robert O. would tell them. “Please let me get my shot and you can shoot all you want to.”

W

hen thinking of her father, one of the first things that comes to Marsha’s mind is the big heart he had for Albertville.

“He loved the community most of all,” she says. “He was so involved and came in contact with so many people at the schools, clubs, events and sports.”

Randy Johnson, a cousin in Albertville, readily agrees.

Much of Robert O.’s work was done in the studio, where he shot portraits of people such as Bessie Marbut, secretary to a local attorney, and Dr. Shelton Appleton, top right.

He was also accomplished on location. At left is his photo of Hogan Jackson Sr., with a photo of his late wife, Mozelle.

Hogan established the Bank of Albertville, Farmers and Merchants Bank in Boaz and the Bank of Arab. He was also the grandfather of Kate Jackson of Charlie’s Angels.

“Robert O. always has sung the praises of Albertville,” he wrote in a biographical sketch for his uncle’s AHS Hall of Fame induction. “If asked, he tells people Birmingham is 79 miles south of Albertville and Huntsville is 49 miles north of Albertville. Every place is ‘from Albertville,’ not vice versa.”

Randy’s bio requires 188 words to cover Robert O.’s civic involvement.

Briefly, it spanned from a term on the city council to chairman of the Municipal Utilities Board, the city’s first Red Cross blood drive and its United Givers Fund. He was a member of the Civitans, president of the Lions and four-time president of the Jaycees, whose state convention he brought to Albertville, a first for a town of its size.

He was a devoted, lifetime member

of the First United Methodist Church, having grown up across Glover Street from it.

Robert O. did not shoot the photo of the Albertville Chamber of Commerce’s 1993 Citizen of the Year Award. He was the recipient.

When Robert O. closed his studio and retired at 86, it ended Albertville’s oldest continuous business – 101 years – under

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59

the same family name. After decades of shooting so many photos, of being so involved in the community, Robert O.’s retirement cut him off from a lot of people, Marsha says.

“I dread it, I just plain dread it!” he said in his retirement story.

B

eing a positive sort of guy, Robert O. made the most of it. He met his buddies for daily breakfast at The Sandwich Host.

Being a curious sort of guy, he signed up at the Marshall County tech school to learn about digital photography. He bought a computer, learned all about them and stayed connected with people.

But he quit shooting pictures in his retirement.

Fortunately, Marsha says, boxes exist of old family photos he shot. Before snapping the shutter, Robert O. never once let out a “Say ‘cheese!’”

“He would do something funny to get our attention,” she says. “The sad part is he was never in the pictures.”

More akin to tragic than sad, when her dad closed his studio, he literally destroyed all of his old prints and negatives.

“He did not want them falling into the wrong hands … being used without permission, say on greeting cards,” Marsha says. “He contacted the historic society people then and there was no real interest.”

So she helped him tote his life’s work out to a big garbage can behind the studio and burn it all.

“But he looked at every single thing before it went in there,” Marsha says. “A trip down memory lane.

“I was amazed at the scope of his work. He knew he was recording history, and that was one of hardest things when he closed.”

R

obert O. died April 24, 2013. He was 91.

It’s now become a thing for Marsha’s generation – including her AHS Class of 1970 – to post old photos on Facebook.

It’s always interesting to her when she sees one of her dad’s pictures pop up. It’s interesting to others, too. Perhaps that’s because somewhere in those images a bit of the photographer’s soul yet lingers.

Good Life Magazine 60

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Robert O. shot the portrait at top of J.J. Benford, editor and publisher of The Albertville Herald 1934-1964. All of the other photos on this page were shot by Robert O. probably for the Herald during the latter part of Benford’s long run at the paper. Continuing clockwise from center left are: Walter Decker, a colorful character –and big Bama fan –from a prominent Albertville family who enjoyed eating at the former Food Basket; receiving an honorary pin is George Nixon, who ran the local Standard Oil Co. for years; the Toys for Tots promo was shot on West Main in Albertville, possibly for The Boaz Leader; Betty Thomas poses for a photo likely bound for the social pages; and Dorsett Davis arm wrestles with Deleon Hooper. “They always had an arm-wresting competition between them,” says Dennis Burgess, who today owns the prints on page 59-61. “Usually Dorsett Davis would wind up winning.”

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Out ‘n’ About If you were out and about in the early nights and mornings of July you may have seen the comet Neowise passing through our neighborhood of the universe.

Al Reese photographed the comet in a star-spangled sky while set up on the night of July 19 in the middle of Co. Rd. 67 just past the causeway and the Marshall County line. Retired from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, Al lives in South Sauty. As head of the Marshall County Southern Baptist Disaster Relief Team, he was featured in the fall 2018 issue of Good Life Magazine.

His eagle photos have also appeared in GLM.

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