Grace, Resurrection & Renewal in Alabama
Posted on March 29, 2016 by bob in Travel
Northwest Alabama is known for water sports and hiking trails as well as music and miracles.
Story by Andrea Gross; photos by Irv Green
When I visited northwest Alabama, I was hoping to find a wide variety of sports, culture, music, and history. I wasn’t disappointed, finding all these and more…as well as activities, places and events that could best be described as miraculous.
Amazing Grace in Tuscumbia
The small, black pump stands in front of a modest clapboard house. A seven-year-old girl reaches out and feels the cool water as it flows into her hands. The audience is absolutely silent.
A blind man discusses the statue of Helen Keller with a deaf woman.
We’ve all seen The Miracle Worker, the play and movie that tell the story of Helen Keller. We know what’s going to happen, but we want to see it portrayed here, on the grounds of Ivy Green, the home where Keller grew up. The house in the background is the one in which she and her teacher, Annie Sullivan, struggled; the gardens are the ones through which they walked, and the pump is the very same pump that spilled out the water that awakened Helen’s brain.
With a frenzied cry, the young actress begins to finger-tap into the hand of the woman standing next to her. W…A…T…E…R. Helen Keller has learned to communicate. A miracle has occurred.
For those in the audience, many who are deaf or blind, the moment is electric. After the play several of them walk over to a life-size statue of Keller and the pump.
A woman looks with her eyes, but asks questions with her hands. Her companion finger-taps the answers. A man who sees with his hands runs his fingers over the statue. “I wish I could have met her,” he says.
Helen Keller still serves as an inspiration to everyone, but especially to those who need her most. Chalk it up to another miracle.
Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones and Paul Simon recorded at 3614 Jackson Highway, home of “The Swampers.”
Resurrection in Muscle Shoals
The word “resurrection” is always tinged with the miraculous, whether it’s used in the biblical sense or simply as a synonym for “restoration,” as when I speak of resurrecting my vintage bathtub from the garbage bin. But here in Muscle Shoals it’s an entire tradition that is being resurrected.
Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett and Otis Redding were among those who recorded at FAME Studios.
Back in the 60s and 70s, Muscle Shoals was a musical mecca, luring the country’s greatest artists to its small production studios. The Allman Brothers, Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding and The Rolling Stones were among the many who made pilgrimages to Alabama to record songs that personified America.
But by the 1990s technological advances had nearly decimated the recording business.
Music was no longer produced, distributed or listened to in the same way, and Muscle Shoals was in danger of losing its identity as well as its industry.
Then in 2013 a documentary celebrating the town’s musical legacy was released to critical acclaim at the Sundance Film Festival, and folks began clamoring to see the old sound studio at 3614 Jackson Highway. The Muscle Shoals Music Foundation is completing restoration of the studio to look like it did during its glory days, and as of April 2016 plans are for it to serve as a museum as well as a studio and gathering place for musicians.
The rebirth of the Muscle Shoals sound as well as the Muscle Shoals town has begun. (For the most up-to-date details on the restoration process, go to www.msmusicfoundation.org.)
Renewal in Florence
Tom Hendrix had heard stories about his great-great-grandmother all his life. He knew how she, along with other Indians from the Southeast, had been relocated to Oklahoma in the 1830s, how she was determined to find her way back to nunnushae, the “singing river” that flowed near her Alabama home, and how she walked more than 700 miles to do so, guided only by her dreams.
Tom Hendrix used 8.5 million pounds of stone to build a wall to honor his great-great-grandmother. The wall runs 1.5 miles through the north Alabama countryside.
When he told this story to a tribal elder, her answer changed his life. “You too will follow your path and sing your song,” she said.
Tom set forth on his path more than thirty years ago, and it has resulted in the longest unmortared wall in America, one that winds 1.5 miles through the north Alabama countryside. It contains 8.5 million pounds of stone — all put into place by Tom, without help, without heavy machinery and without complaint. “We shall all pass through this earth. Only the stones remain,” he says. “We honor our ancestors with stone.”
Part of the wall is straight, as was his great-great-grandmother’s mandatory march along the Trail of Tears. Another part, which represents her return, is full of twists and turns. In between are stone prayer circles, where visitors can sit, reflect and dream.
Tom found his miracle in stones, and through his wall, he has helped countless others find their miracles as well.
For additional information on Florence, Ala. visit www.visitflorenceal.com. For more on the places and sites listed here as well as other Alabama attractions, visit the companion website, www.traveltizers.com.
