Onward and Upward!

With Starbucks in hand, we bid adieu to Florida’s gritty panhandle and pointed the minivan toward Alabama to meet up with family, avoid meeting up with tropical storm Alberto, eat BBQ, and try to prevent getting the song, “Sweet Home Alabama,” lodged in our brains like a parasitic deer tick (I even heard a choir version on the gospel station once). Since we have a statistically significant number of family members who have relocated to Alabama, this wasn’t exactly virgin territory for us, but we did get a chance to experience a lot more of the state than we typically do during one of our more surgically precise strikes in Huntsville. 

To be honest, I don't love Alabama, but I don’t hate it either. To me, it’s basically the soy milk of states: usable as a last resort, but otherwise unnecessary. Additionally, it was good to see family and also be reminded that there are places even more humid than Florida. 

My parents stay in Alabama because of the low cost of living. I get that (I really, really get that now that we live in Naples). They have a 30 acre farm with barns, buildings and city trash collection, and, because they are seniors, their annual property taxes are less than five dollars. I shit you not, that’s not a typo (or tick-induced fever talking). Five Frikken Dollars!

One thing $5 doesn’t buy you in Alabama, though, is zoning laws. Apparently you can inhabit or do business out of any structure (complete or partial, built or on wheels) just about anywhere you damn well please. For a closet anal retentive who used to color coordinate his Lego communities, this drives me nuts! 

We saw Helen Keller's house, which,
if you think about it,
is more than she ever did.

Million dollar plantations adjacent to mutant, hybrid trailer and plywood “compounds” adjacent to inhabited pole barn/meth labs adjacent to modest subdivisions adjacent to mud wrestling dinner clubs...oh, the humanity! 

An aerial view of any Alabama municipality is basically Dolly Parton’s “Coat of Many Colors” interpreted geographically. It is master land planning as performed by a hippie, incense reeking, middle-school art teacher, and it’s the visual equivalent of chewing on tin foil. 

I wonder how much a difference $10 would make.