Sunday, April 25, 2021
Saturday, April 24, 2021
According to Lee Pake, the seamstress for Pake-McKean Sporting Goods invented the script A logo for BAMA.
Thursday, April 22, 2021
from the book FOOLS OF FORTUNE
GAMBLING IN MOBILE
Before the war, the slave owner with wealth at his command, with his plantations overseered by trustworthy men, with his crops cultivated by his slaves, gradually became more and more indifferent to mercantile pursuits, and indeed, to any vocation involving actual work of either mind or body, his main anxiety being to solve the question, how should he spend his money and live. Especially was this true before the advent of the railroad, when Mobile was the principal city in the State, the most easy of access on account of its rivers, and the focus of at least two thirds of the entire wealth of Alabama. Gaming at that time in Mobile was almost universal, the sporting element being by far more gentlemanly, better educated and in every respect more polished than are the men of that ilk today. Among the patrons of the race course were such men as William R. Johnson, Colonel Sprague, "Wagner" Campbell; while the gamblers numbered in their ranks Captain George Grant and Jack Delahaunty. As long as money poured into Mobile, that city was specially noted among the gambling fraternity for the high stakes wagered on horse racing, and the amount risked on the turn of a card. Even when the "late unpleasantness" came on, substantially the same state of affairs existed, what diminution there was in gaming among the residents, was more counterbalanced by the prevalence of gambling among the soldiers armies during the war .
At this time a well known figure on the streets of Mobile was Captain William H. Williamson. He was a Virginian by birth, of wealthy parents and educated as a gentleman. Early in life he settled in Alabama, exceedingly fond of horses and generally devoted to sporting and a frequenter of the races in Mobile, even up to a date within last few years. He was one of the California Forty-niners , one of the witnesses of the famous Broderick-Terry duel, the story of has recently been revived by the shooting of Judge Terry. Captain was elected Chief of Police for two terms, holding that office six years. It is fairness of play and unfailing courtesy rendered popular and he was one of the best types of the gamblers who before made Mobile their headquarters. During the antebellum days brace games were either exceptional desirable. In fact they may be said to have been comparatively in Mobile until after the occupancy of the city by the federal when an army estimated at 60,000 occupied the city and its vicinity With the advent of the camp followers came sharp and gambling revived in its most pernicious form From 1865 to 1872 this state of affairs continued In the year 1873 having like every other city in the Union undergone the ordeal financial panic which at that time swept over the country at large not a particularly favorable spot for the operations of gamblers The of the State enacted about that time moreover were decidedly to gambling However keno rooms and lotteries began to flourish expense of poker faro and roulette Each successive legislature more stringent laws against gaming than had its predecessor and gambling almost ceased to exist Simultaneously however with of each new administration some of the sporting fraternity venturesome than others attempted to run keno faro and poker Yet the popular demand for the enforcement of the laws was so and the sentences of the court so severe that at present gambling in is conducted with the utmost secrecy and every precaution is to avoid police interference During the decade between 1870 and 1880 lotteries flourished A case was made up against AJ Moses and its determination temporarily put a stop to them all At present lottery tickets are exposed for with great caution the grand jury presenting a true bill against the so far as the latter can be ascertained two or three times a year the fact that they usually turn their wheels in some place the city limits It was during the period between 1875 and 1880 that Bud who has since figured so prominently in sporting circles particularly
Saturday, April 10, 2021
to search this Dothan City Cemetery list press Control + f https://www.dothan.org/DocumentCenter/View/4488/DothanCityCemetery?bidId=&fbclid=IwAR3eboIKf95M6pHBn5eC9RNXWZQXMM5RncMvKW6Ib6qzHl4ihF6BGixscIo
Thursday, April 08, 2021
page 330 of DEVIL MAKE A THIRD:
"Bah!" his mother said, then she moved her eyes sharply straight ahead at Millie. "That'n now. She'll never get a real man-ain't built for it."
Millie stood up straight and put her hands on her hips.
"I don't know," she said. She moved to the side so her mother could see her and pulled her long skirt up nearly to her knees. "If skirts were this short, I'd be beating them off."
"Humph! All baseball players, too."
"Millie dropped her skirt and glared at her mother. She didn't say anything, and the room suddenly was very quiet.
"Baseball players?" Buck's quick words cut deliberately into the quiet. Millie nodded and her hands went back to her hips.
"What of it?" She looked back at her mother defiantly. Lota cleared her throat to speak, but Buck squeezed her hand and stopped her.
"I never could understand," he said, thoughtfully, "how come you girls don't marry better. You're all right pretty, and I never saw either one of you with a dirty neck."
"Now, you just wait." Millie said her words slowly with a space between each. Her head went from side to side as she spoke. "As long as you've been living in Aven and running around with senators and bankers and really big men, you've never introduced either of us to a man." She stopped abruptly and clenched her teeth. "Why?"
Buck didn't answer, but he felt a flush coming up his face. He let her eyes hold his for a moment, the shifted them uneasily to his mother.
"Think that over," Millie said distinctly, and turned quickly and walked out, closing the door softly behind her.
The silence was heavy until Jeanie Bannon said, "Whew, boy, she laid it on heavy , didn't she?"
Tuesday, April 06, 2021
So yesterday I tried to keep my eyes on the river during my entire hike. The flood was over and they'd cleared the upriver floodgates so all sorts of debris was floating by; coolers, navigation buoys, huge rafts of various logs, etc. The RiverWalk trail veers away from the river as you approach the Cypress Shelter but it comes into view just as you round the curve. Right then I saw a bald eagle TRYING to fly with a huge fish. It was flapping just above the water and attempting to climb. I began running toward the river yelling over and over to the students sitting around with their heads in their cell phones, "A bald eagle's flyin' down the river with a fish!" I must have yelled it three or four times and nobody looked up from their phone. I missed my shot but got to see that magnificently overloaded bald eagle fly down the river pursued by a cawing black crow. As I walked away from the edge of the bluff, a couple of the students looked up from their phones to see who the crazy old man was who'd been yelling. I shared my story with them about what they had just missed, "and there was that bald eagle with a big fish in his talons, flying as hard as he could to get away from a crow that's got robbery on its mind. Sorta like America today, ain't it?"
This mornin' I was thinking about WONDER GRAPHICS and I said to myself, "Hell, you buddies with two SUPER rock'n roll artists: Mike McCarty(who from my old hometown) & Dick Bangham! WOW! I'm grateful! https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Rip+Bang%22+%22Dick+Bangham%22&client=firefox-b-1-d&sxsrf=ALeKk02WVyaI7-CAw2-iMemDaHOIBR0org:1617711695263&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjetsfXzenvAhUTbc0KHRxVCr8Q_AUoAXoECAEQAw&biw=1588&bih=914
Monday, April 05, 2021
Sunday, April 04, 2021
These are images of the list of performers from the Eutaw churches who participated in the March 22, 1964 Easter music program at Eutaw Presbyterian and the recording of the LP of that program is also pictured. This church program and the LP record are valuable to collectors of Heaven's Gate suicide cult memorabilia because this performance was directed by Marshall "Herff" Applewhite, the founder of Heaven's Gate, whose members committed the largest mass suicide in American history in 1997. There is much to be learned about "Herff" Applewhite's years in Alabama. He taught at the University during the '61-'62 school year, the '62-'63 school year, the '63-'64 school year and by 1965 Applewhite's Alabama career was over due to inappropriate sexual behavior. During that time he directed community choirs organized in churches all around West Alabama and East Mississippi.
from the ROBERTOREG ARCHIVES:
An early 1980s Tuscaloosa News clipping:
Down the street at Egan's, on of the popular stops in the University Boulevard "strip," Central High School-West biology teacher Robert Register said he was watching the daytime television game on a weekday "because we are out of school and I don't have to work today. That means I can drink in the afternoon. I would love to be up there in Boston, though," the Dothan native said. "I love bad weather."