A Tale of Two Frogs

Our back porch between the kitchen and the deck has storm windows and a storm door. That setup allows us to use a heater out there and enjoy the space even in cool and cold weather. The porch also serves as a home in winter for Dianne's jungle. Before the first frost we move all the plants inside from the deck. Included are two lemon trees, a coffee plant, papaya, avocado, orchids, and lots of other stuff. 

For the past several years we've had a visitor that comes inside with all the plants. The first two or three times he was an American green tree frog we named Fred. We found him on one of the plants when they were on the porch during the winter. We saw him--or his twin--again when the plants were moved outside, then again the next winter. We didn't see him this past winter, but we did find FredToo, a gray tree frog. He was in the pineapple plant and still there when we recently moved the plants outdoors again.

We'll have to see whether FredToo remains in Dianne's jungle this year. In the meantime, you can find out more about frogs and toads [which are a type of frog] at Wikipedia's portal. 

I've also written about "A Giant Frog in Mobile in 1877."

More comments are below some of the photos. 

Fred in November 2015 

Fred on the deck March 2016

This would seem to be a lizard encroaching on Fred's pineapple plant in October 2016

Fred on the pineapple March 2017

FredToo in the pineapple plant March 2019

FredToo on the windowsill inside the porch April 2019 just before all the plants were moved outdoors

And here's what we found in the pineapple in May 2020 several weeks after moving the plant from the porch to the deck. Pineapples below.

And here's the most recent view [2019] of Dianne's deck jungle. FredToo is out there somewhere; the pineapple plant is the first one between the first two poles on the left. 

Frogs make frequent appearances in human culture, whether in culinary form, children's books or patent medicine advertisements from the 19th century. 

Birmingham Photo of the Day (69): Miss Fancy

In 1910 the city of Birmingham annexed the suburb of Avondale and its large park. The following year a new attraction was added--some animals in cages. This small group eventually expanded into a zoo that operated until 1934.

In 1913 an elephant named Miss Fancy was purchased from the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus when it passed through town. She became the zoo's main attraction until it closed. At that time Miss Fancy and some of the other animals were sold to the Coleman Brothers-Clyde Beatty Circus who took them to their winter home in Peru, Indiana.  

After 1934 Birmingham had no zoo until 1955, when the Jimmy Morgan Zoo opened. That zoo eventually became today's Birmingham Zoo. 

The newspaper photo below was taken just before the decision to closed the Avondale Zoo was made. More information can be found in the caption.

As it does for so many things, the BhamWiki site has an extensive article on Miss Fancy. Various other photos and articles can be found on the Alabama Mosaic site. 

Miss Fancy was born in 1871 and died in 1954 at the Buffalo, New York, zoo where she had lived since 1939. A small bronze statue of Miss Fancy was placed in Avondale Park in 2012 after the park's renovation. The statue was damaged, and a fund raising effort to replace it is currently underway. 

Source: Birmingham Post 9 October 1934

via

Birmingham Public Library Digital Collections

Lunch at Lloyd's

Dianne and I made a rare trip to the US Highway 280 area recently and decided for old time's sake to have lunch at Lloyd's Restaurant. The place is legendary in central Alabama, having operated at its current location since 1978. The original Lloyd's opened in Chelsea in a modest building in 1937; the owner was Lloyd Chesser. After his retirement in 1971, the new owners eventually relocated the business. 

At the time of that move, the place was "out in the country". The only other business at the time in that area may have been the one across the highway, Perrin's Grocery, a gas station & store with a stone face that's still operating. I believe there has been a bit of growth around those businesses in the past few years.  

I remember eating at Lloyd's probably in the early 1990's when our kids Amos and Becca were pretty young. Dianne and I could not really remember if we had ever eaten there another time. 

Frankly, I was rather disappointed. I had a chopped pork plate, which arrived with some sort of weak-tasting sauce ALREADY ON IT. Yikes. The pork wasn't all that flavorful, either. A couple of weeks earlier brother Richard and I ate at a Gibson's Bar-B-Q in Huntsville, and I had a choice of red or white sauce to go on the excellent pork. White it was, by the way. 

The turnip greens, corn on the cobb and butter peas were pretty good. Dianne enjoyed her grilled snapper, so maybe I ordered the wrong entree. I'm afraid the place and its food just struck me as rather tired. If you want a 1970's time machine, Lloyd's will do. 

In today's varied culinary and nutrition conscious worlds, traditional Southern food seems passe and lots of it is not that healthy. I say that as an Alabama native who has lived here all my life and eaten who knows how many such meals over the years. These days our eating choices are so much wider, and I like a lot of them. Let's go get some sushi!

Every now and then I do want some of that "comfort" food and much better can be found at Niki's West and Sweet Tea Restaurant in Birmingham or Sarris Cafe in Pelham. Strangely enough, those three places are owned by people with Greek roots. Immigrants from Greece began coming to central Alabama over a hundred years ago. Now that's Southern!

Further Reading

Wortham, April. 65 years old: Longtime 280 restaurant has seen many changes since 1937 opening. Shelby County Reporter 27 February 2002, p. 6

Taylor, Kelli Hewett. Steaking claim to tradition: Lloyd's at 70 still home to old-style Southern cooking. Birmingham News 1 July 2007, pp. 15A-16A

Mom's Art & AMIA Stained Glass

In January 2018 I posted an item on this blog entitled "My Mother the Artist." I discussed her career as a watercolor artist that has continued for more than five decades. Carolyn Shores Wright turned 89 this past December and continues to paint.

Over the years mom's art has been licensed for many items, ranging from prints and greeting cards to coasters and trivets. One of the companies licensing her work is AMIA, which has manufactured hand-painted glass gifts since 1995. The products are made in Hong Kong; mom's samples have been shipped to her directly from there. 

The Collector's Addition is a distributor that carries new and many retired AMIA products. Amazon and WalMart also offer many of them. Unfortunately, none of these sites seem to easily identify the artist for each piece. For Amazon and Wal-Mart, use the search string "amia stained glass carolyn shores wright" and you will find many of them. 

You can find mom's art on ArtFire, Etsy, Fine Art America and Pinterest. You can follow her on Twitter @CShoresInc and Facebook as CShoresInc.

Below are photographs of some of the AMIA items created from mom's work. Most of these were included in a recent shipment.

In April 2017 we made a trip to Colorado Springs. One day we visited the nearby town of Manitou Springs, which has lots of interesting restaurants and gift shops. In one of the latter we found this AMIA item of mom's for sale. I've written about that trip in a blog post here.

This piece and the one below are the two largest AMIA items. They are both VERY large compared to all the others!

Alabama Interstates: A Bit of History

On March 3 Dianne and I were in downtown Birmingham headed to Texas de Brazil for dinner. Currently that area is undergoing a significant transformation: the old Interstate is being torn down and a new section built. If you've ever been to that part of the city around the BJCC, you'll see from the first three photos below that things are looking strange there!

Seeing this work underway naturally made me wonder about the history of Interstate development in Birmingham and the rest of Alabama. I've included a dozen or so photographs and one newspaper article below to give a flavor of the early days in the state. 

For more detail you can read about the Interstate Highway System in general here. Wikipedia also has articles on all the Interstates in Alabama. 

On May 30, 2019, AL.com published numerous photos of the ongoing construction in downtown Birmingham.

Part of I-65 in Cullman has been designated a Blue Star Memorial Highway. I've written about that here.

Stretch of Interstate opens in Ensley August 1968

Source: Birmingham News 28 August 1969
via Birmingham Public Library Digital Collections

Interstate north of Birmingham November 1959

Source: Alabama Dept. of Archives & History

Interstate north of Birmingham August 1962

Source: Alabama Dept of Archives & History

Interstate 65 & 85 interchange Montgomery December 1973

Source: Alabama Dept. of Archives & History

Interstate under construction in Birmingham in 1968

Source: Alabama Dept. of Archives & History

Interstate under construction in Birmingham in 1968

Source: Alabama Dept. of Archives & History

Start of construction of I-85 in Montgomery in May 1968

Source: Alabama Dept of Archives & History

Crane lifting a steel beam for Interstate in Birmingham 1968

Source: Alabama Dept. of Archives & History

Gov. Guy & Helen Hunt at an I-59 rest stop November 2, 1990

Source: Alabama Dept. of Archives & History

Alabama Typewriter Company

I recently passed by this building just off the UAB campus near the Fish Market Restaurant on 6th Avenue South. The place appears empty and forlorn; I think the venerable Alabama Typewriter Company has finally closed.

Let's investigate....

Here's the store front as it looked on March 3. Compare that to this Google Street View from February 2017. The website advertised on the business next door, Internationalnotary.com is no longer active, either. According to the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, that site has been inactive since 2006. 

Billy Ray Hagood in his shop ca. 2017

Source: Jonathan Krohn for the Trussville Tribune via BhamWiki

According to an April 2011 profile, Mr. Hagood bought the shop at this location in 1986. That profile on al.com noted, "Founded as a Victor Adding Machine Co. branch in 1922, the typewriter repair shop took on its current name in the 1930s or '40s, though Hagood doesn't know exactly when."

The BhamWiki entry expands on that history: "The business was founded as a local office of the Victor Adding Machine Company in 1922 and became independent in the 1930s or 1940s. In the 1950s and 1960s it was owned by W. R. Hudson and located at 1821 5th Avenue North."

On September 1, 2017, a truck crashed into the front of the business. Hagood was not injured, but spent two hours trapped inside until debris was cleared for him to leave. In a WVTM-TV report, Hagood said the event might be the "end of an era." You can read more about the incident and see some dramatic photos here. 

Perhaps the business never reopened. There is a Facebook page, but the most recent entry is December 19, 2013. The phone number there and other places on the web is out of service; dial 205-322-8691 and you get that disembodied voice telling you "The number has been disconnected or is no longer in service".

The following two entries and the ad are taken from the 1945 Birmingham Yellow Pages telephone directory. As you can see, the information for the Victor Adding Machine Company and the Alabama Typewriter Company are the same. I included the ad just for fun. 

Additional material follows the ad. Feel free to leave your memories of this business or typewriters in the comments. 

This extract from the 1945 Birmingham Yellow Pages shows the Alabama Typewriter Company with the same address as the Victor Adding Machine Company shown below and with an additional phone number. You can see that address on Google Maps.

This extract from the 1945 Birmingham Yellow Pages shows the Victor Adding Machine Company at 1923 5th Avenue North.

This advertisement appears in the 1945 Birmingham Yellow Pages in the "Typewriters" section.

This particular typewriter has been on display in recent years at the Helena Depot Deli & Grill. The Bessemer Hall of History has a typewriter used by Adolf Hitler. Typewriters can still be found at flea markets and antique and consignment shops. You can read a history of typewriters here.

One of the world's best known collectors of typewriters is actor Tom Hanks. The short stories in his 2017 book were inspired by his collection.

You can read a profile of Stanley Adelman, "New York's patron saint of typewriters" here.

And then there is the Boston Typewriter Orchestra...

Finally, here I am in my office in Draughon Library at Auburn University in the 1970's, pounding away on an IBM Selectric.   

Quick Visit to a North Alabama Town: Baileyton

On my trips to Huntsville to visit mom I often get off I-65 and drive through some of the back roads and small towns along the way. One of those towns on a recent trip was Baileyton in northeastern Cullman County. Baileyton is located on Alabama Highway 69 not far from Arab. 

In her book Place Names in Alabama (1989), Virginia Foscue tells us the town was named after Robert Bailey, a farmer from Georgia who settled in the area in 1870. As noted in the Encyclopedia of Alabama entry for Baileyton, Bailey also operated a cotton gin. A post office was established in 1883; the town incorporated in 1973. 

Baileyton was originally located in Blount County, but became part of Cullman County when it was created in 1877. The Alabama Official & Statistical Register gives the town's changing population over the years: 1037 in 1890, 1197 in 1900, and then as high as 2043 in 1920. The 2016 U.S. Census estimate listed 766 as the population.

Many different businesses have operated in Baileyton such as sawmills, gristmills, general stores and cotton gins. The statewide Farmer's Alliance operated a store in the 1880's. A Masonic Lodge received a charter in December 1890. Dr. John T. Winn had a medical practice and drug store from 1898 until 1936. 

In her 1972 book Combing Cullman County Margaret Jean Jones lists a number of businesses then operating in Baileyton, ranging from a supermarket to laundromats, beauty and barber shops, fabric shop, furniture store, trading stamp redemption store and a drag strip. According to Google Maps, the Baileyton Good Time Drag Strip is still operating on County Road 1719. 

Jones also discusses the Empire Nursery established by R.L. Baker north of the town in 1926. He arrived in Baileyton in 1898, but left for California in 1913 and entered the nursery business. When he returned he began cultivating and cross-breeding various types of apples and peaches and produced numerous different varieties of each fruit. The nursery operated until at least 1939. 

A one room schoolhouse opened in 1885. By 1900 fifty students were enrolled. In 1916 a two-story, four room school was built that originally included students through the eleventh grade. In 1927 that changed to the ninth grade; three years later the building was expanded when two nearby schools were consolidated with Baileyton's. Today the town is served by Parkside Elementary School. 

In 1936 a female entertainer named Sarah Ophelia Colley made an appearance at the Baileyton school. She worked for a theatrical company based in Atlanta, the Wayne P. Sewell Production Company, putting together plays and musicals for civic organizations around the South. Colley came to Baileyton to produce an amateur musical comedy, and while there met a Mrs. Jim Burden. The Burdens invited her to stay with them for a few days, and Mrs. Burden told many stories during that time. Colley repeated these to friends, who urged her to build an act around them. 

In 1939 Colley introduced her character of Minnie Pearl in Aiken, South Carolina. By November 1940 she made her first appearance on the Grand Ole Opry, an association that would last over 50 years. Colley also portrayed the character on the Hee Haw television program from 1969 until 1991. Colley told the story of the character's origins on the May 1, 1957, episode of This Is Your Life. Colley died in 1995.

A few more comments are below some of the photos. 

Most small towns have a spectacular ruin or two, and Baileyton is no exception.

In April 1870 Robert Bailey purchased 40 acres of land from the L&N Railroad; Alabama Highway 69 now divides that original plot. The stone notes he and his wife were "early settlers" and founders of what is now the Baileyton United Methodist Church. They are buried in Baileyton Cemetery. 

Source: Find-A-Grave

Baileyton United Methodist Church is listed on the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage and the cemetery on the state's Historic Cemetery Register. 

Source: The church's Facebook page

Sarah Ophelia Colley as "Minnie Pearl" in 1965

Source: Wikipedia