For $9.95,
you got shrimp, scallops, oysters, deviled crab, clams and grouper
(unfortunately, they were all fried--not the healthiest way to eat seafood, of
course, but what are you gonna do?) with cole slaw and choice of potato on the
side and a trip to the salad bar thrown in for good measure. Now, that's a
seafood platter; I wonder why they couldn't pull this off in the other seaside
communities I had visited. The prices in most of them had been at least fifty
percent higher.
I returned to my little home-by-the-sea quite bloated but happy. It was another night of one million stars, rivaling Hunting Island, but without the breathtaking moon. I was sitting on the beach, relaxed, reflective and close to God, when some Bud drinkers alighted near me, with their boom box cranked up loud and tuned to a local rock'n'roll station playing Journey.Not really in keeping with my mood at the moment, so I returned to my encampment.
I watched Johnny's last Tonight show, found it even sadder than the Thursday night edition and dropped off to sleep during Dave.
This morning, I briefly considered staying at the beach another night but I was already sunburned from Friday afternoon so it seemed pointless. Instead, I headed north through the Florida panhandle, bound for Montgomery, Alabama. I had intended to visit Birmingham but the friends that live there were away for the three-day weekend and there was little else to draw me. Montgomery was some 120 miles closer and had a KOA for me so that was that.
It's odd but on a lengthy
excursion like this one, it's well nigh impossible to be enthusiastic about one's
travels every day. Leaving the ocean was difficult for me, and nothing in the
first fifty or sixty miles of Alabama that I traveled piqued my interest so I was
driving rather listlessly, not looking forward to much in the next couple of days
ahead. Things picked up a bit in a small town called
Enterprise, though. There, smack dab in the middle of town, is a monument,
comprised of a statue, in classical style and surrounded by a fountain, depicting
a woman, attired in flowing robes, holding something aloft, as if in offering to
the gods. And just what is she elevating, for all to see and admire? A big, black
bug; a boll weevil, to be more precise. A nearby plaque reads,"In Profound
Appreciation of the Boll Weevil and What It has Done as the Herald of
Prosperity."Say what? Well, it seems that, back in the summer of 1915, the
fields surrounding Enterprise, and much of the rest of the cotton-yielding South,
were infested with weevils, robbing them of two-thirds of their yearly crop. This
disaster forced the farmers to diversify their crops, adding peanuts, potatoes,
corn and sugar cane, among other things. So, now, the soil that was almost
drained by the cotton crop gave forth a variety of riches, turning around what
had been a struggling agriculturally-based economy and adding a lushness to the
Alabama countryside. It never would have happened without the Boll Weevil and the
good people of Enterprise know this full well. They erected this monument in 1919
and it stills stands today, expressing their gratitude to the little bug they
once, no doubt, cursed.
Return to the BRETTnews Home Page.
Email us at mailroom@brettnews.com..