Road Apples
Aug. 17, 2009

The Gulf Coast, irony and the human spirit

By Tim Sanders

There are places on this planet where goofy things happen so often that these places become synonymous with goofiness. Consider France, for example. France is the home not only of mimes, but also of that culinary delight, escargot. The obvious question here is: Why France? Why not Alabama?

Well, I would argue that no respectable Alabama resident would have even considered the mime as entertainment, let alone the snail as fit for human consumption.


BOB: I been thinking on it, Earl, We been working all week at the mill, and then when we get home Daddy he puts us to clearing them two acres down by the swamp and building that pole barn. I do believe we need us some personal time all to ourselves. It come to me that we ort to get up before dawn, slop the hogs, plant a couple rows of corn, and then ... and then we could play us a game. We could paint our faces white, put on Momma’s Sunday gloves and some funny hats, and ... and pretend we was stuck in an invisible box.

EARL (thinking for a moment): Why couldn’t we just holler for an invisible man to come an’ let us out of the invisible box?

BOB: ‘Cause we ... we ain’t allowed to talk in this game. We’ll make it a rule.

EARL: When do we get out of the invisible box, Bob?

BOB: We get out when I hand you an invisible hammer, and you knock an invisible hole in that invisible box for us to pretend to crawl out of. Then, after we work us up an appetite, I was thinking we could fry us up a skillet full of ... of ... of, er, tasty garden snails.

EARL: Invisible snails?

BOB: No, real snails. And greens, and gravy, too.

EARL: Mmmm, I can’t wait!


Of course that sounds absolutely ridiculous. Alabama folks have better sense than that. France is the home of escargot and mimes because, according to the latest census, it is densely populated. And that density is entirely attributable to Frenchmen.

The explanation as to why certain things happen in certain localities almost always lies at the door of the local residents. Washington D.C., for example, has long been known as the crime capital of the United States. Except for August, when Congress is in recess.

Some areas, however, get a reputation which does not seem to depend on the nature of the local residents. Consider the Gulf Coast of Alabama, for example.

In June of 2006, a lady named Clara Jean Brown stood in her kitchen in Daphne, Alabama, praying for her son’s family, who’d gone to Mobile Bay for the day. The area was being ravaged by severe thunderstorms, and she prayed that the family would return home safely. She finished her prayer with a reverent “AMEN,” and at that very moment a lightning bolt hit a water main across the street, exploded through her floor, tore up her linoleum and scattered pieces of concrete across her kitchen. She was knocked down, confused and disoriented, but otherwise unhurt. This struck me, by which I mean the story, not the lightning bolt, as ironic. Mrs. Brown was blameless. She hadn’t gone out looking for a lightning bolt, after all.

I hadn’t thought about that incident in years, until last week when Post Editor Scott Wright sent me an August 6, 2009 AP article about a woman in Mobile, Alabama, just a scant 11 miles from Daphne. According to the article:


Prosecutors asked a judge to throw out a public lewdness charge against an 81-year-old woman accused of urinating in a public park when she couldn’t make it to a bathroom, the city attorney said Thursday.

... Municipal prosecutors in Mobile filed a motion Wednesday to dismiss the charges against Lola Mae Battle, who suffers from incontinence. Her arrest sparked calls from upset city residents.

“As far as we’re concerned, this is over,” said city attorney Larry Wettermark.
... “Thank you, Jesus. Glory Hallelujah!” Battles told the Press Register newspaper after hearing the city’s motion.

... Battle has said she was at her bank, next to Bienville Square in downtown Mobile, on June 3 when a teller refused to let her use the bathroom. Battle tried to make it to a public restroom across the park but couldn’t get there in time.
The woman lost control of her bladder as she walked, so she ducked into bushes next to a small building. But the building was a one room police substation manned by a cadet, who called for an officer and had her arrested.


The reader can’t ignore the ironic fact that the poor, elderly lady was forced to answer nature’s urgent call in the bushes outside a police substation, and the even more ironic fact that the city attorney who announced the case’s dismissal bore the name Wettermark. The Weak Bladder/Wettermark episode, like the Daphne lightning strike story, is a sad tale with no apparent moral.

If France is the home of snail eaters and mimes, it is not due to the climate, nor the nation’s proximity to the English Channel. No, it is due entirely to Frenchmen. And if Washington D.C. is home to America’s criminal element, it is not due to the Potomac, nor the Washington Monument. It is due to Congresspersons.

On the other hand, if the Gulf Coast of Alabama is the home of ironic tales of dramatic personal tragedy and human perseverance, we do not for a moment think it is due to any deficiencies of character in that area’s population. No, those good people deserve only our admiration for their courage, piety, resilience and tenacity.

Mr. Wright has also provided me with fragments of another ironic story, this one about a gentleman in Gulf Shores who barely survived an innocent experiment with an ill-tempered tomcat, duct tape, and a Styrofoam surfboard. The editor swears it is absolutely true, and as soon as he can decide whether to make that cat a haughty Siamese or a poor, feral tabby, I’ll pass the details along to you.