My Son Amos Has a New Book Out, Part 2!

Our son Amos Jasper Wright IV is an urban planner by profession, but he has been writing and publishing fiction for some years. In 2018 his collection of short stories Nobody Knows How It Got This Good was published by Livingston Press. This summer his first novel, Petrochemical Nocturne, has appeared, also published by Livingston. 

When Nobody Knows came out, I naturally wrote a blog post about it. The Kirkus review of the book is here. An interview with him about the book is here. In October 2018 Amos appeared on a panel alongside two other writers with new short story collections at the Louisiana Book Festival in Baton Rouge. 

So here we are with Amos' first novel, Petrochemical Nocturne. Kirkus has reviewed this title, and so has Bill Plott for the Alabama Writers Forum. Bradley Sides interviewed Amos for the Alabama Writers Cooperative. Once again Amos will be appearing at the Louisiana Book Festival. 

Both books are available from Bookshop.org, a book vendor where every purchase supports independent bookstores. The link for Petrochemical is here and Nobody Knows is here. 

If you have read or do read either of these books, please go to their GoodReads pages, say a few words, and rate the book. In the first paragraph above the books' titles link to those pages. Of course, if you buy from Amazon or other outlet,  reviews there would be greatly appreciated. And you can always request that your local library purchase one or both titles. 

"A bristling, lurching, and often insightful investigation of the past."  Says Kirkus about Petrochemical

In his review, Bill Plott wrote about the novel, "Although a novel, this is also an extraordinary work of history. Using Cancer Alley as a setting, Wright has penned a book that is essentially about racism – the systemic and pervasive racism of not just the South but also the nation. Perhaps no white historian has told it with quite the passion that Wright brings to the table."

Joe Louis in "The Phynx"

I can guess what you're thinking--what's a phynx? Let's investigate.

"The Phynx" is a film released briefly in May 1970 by Warner Brothers Studios. Warner finally released it on DVD in 2012, and I watched it recently on Turner Classic Movies. The movie is certainly not a classic, but it has some amusing moments.

A plot summary is hilarious enough. Communists in Albania have kidnapped a number of celebrities from American entertainment and sports worlds. I don't even remember why. In order to free the hostages, U.S. intelligence puts together a rock band from scratch and turns them into world superstars. The group's name? The Phynx, of course. Once famous, the group can appear in concert in Albania and rescue the celebrities.

But wait--there's a hitch. There's a secret map that will lead the musicians to the castle where the hostages are being kept. The map is drawn in three parts on the tummies of three beautiful young women residing in different European cities. In order to find the pieces, Phynx members must "examine" hundreds of women. After that exhausting ordeal, they put the map together and head for Albania.

Are you with me so far? 

Naturally, all the kidnapped celebrities are found and released. A major feature of this portion of the film is a sequence in which they are all introduced to us, the viewers, before leaving Albania. The list includes Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O'Sullivan (the most famous movie Tarzan and Jane), Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall (the Bowery Boys), Ed Sullivan, James Brown, Colonel Sanders, Guy Lombardo, Andy Devine, Ruby Keeler, Edgar Bergen, Butterfly McQueen, Jay Silverheels (Tonto), Rudy Vallee, Xavier Cugat, Trini Lopez, Dick Clark, Richard Pryor, Harold "Oddjob" Sakata, George Jessel, and Rhona Barrett.

Alabama native and former heavyweight boxing champ Joe Louis was also included. As the stars leave the castle in horse-drawn carriages, no less, we see duos or trios of them cracking jokes. Johnny Weissmuller says "Me Tarzan, you Jane" to O'Sullivan, a phrase never uttered during any of their many movies together. Louis and Marilyn Maxwell are sitting together and Louis actually makes an income tax joke, referencing his well-known woes with the IRS over back taxes he owed. 

This film is crazy, baby, really far out. But I had fun watching it. The parade of mostly-aging, many-by-1970 forgotten stars is a shout-out to people who had  entertained millions across the decades. I remember often watching Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall as the Bowery Boys when I was a kid, on Saturday mornings, I guess. They weren't as funny as the Three Stooges, but were pretty amusing. I also appreciated the appearance of John Hart as the Lone Ranger. I much preferred him over Clayton Moore, whom he replaced in the 1952-53 season during a contract dispute. 

The list goes on. Dorothy Lamour! Martha Raye! Joan Blondell! Ed Sullivan! Ruby Keeler! Rudy Vallee! Clint Walker in a hilarious turn as a master sergeant! Oh, and there's Richard Pryer! Butterfly McQueen! Trini Lopez! Sadly, I'm old enough to know who all these people are/were. Check out the film's IMDB entry for a full cast list. 

I should note one other appearance. Actress Sally Struthers made her first film appearance, although uncredited, as the World's Number One Fan of The Phynx. 

Johnny Weissmuller, Cass Dailey, and Joe Louis make their grand entrance. Dailey [1915-1975] was an actress, comedian and singer.

Marilyn Maxwell and Joe Louis tell jokes in their carriage ride leaving Albania. Maxwell [1921-1972] was an actress and singer probably best known for her tours with Bob Hope to entertain the troops during World War II and the Korean War. 

Louis and Weissmuller looking serious earlier in the film. Who's that mysterious gentleman behind them??

Birmingham Photos (85): St. Mary's on the Highlands

In September 2022 Dianne and I were in downtown Birmingham for a doctor's appointment at UAB and a visit to one of our favorite eating places, the Original Pancake House at Five Points South. I found a parking spot around the block on 12th Avenue South in front of St. Mary's on the Highlands Episcopal Church. Before walking down to meet Dianne for brunch, I snapped a few photos of this historic structure. 

As seen in the photo below, the church cornerstone was laid 13 August 1891. Another photo shows the cover of a centennial history published in 1987. Two postcards created early in the church's history are also included. 

This history begins with the founding of the parish in 1887 and was published in 1987. 

These postcards are from the Alabama Dept of Archives and History digital collections here and here. 

The Original Pancake House has been located in the Munger Building since 2000.  The chain has locations in a number of states; the one at Five Points is the only franchise in Alabama. The first location opened in Portland, Oregon, in 1953. I highly recommend a visit. 

Alabama's Outlaw Heritage

I recently posted an article of mine published years ago about dime novels featuring Alabama train robber Rube Burrow. Some time before that article appeared, I published the one seen here that covers several of the state's 19th century outlaws including Burrow. These items were related to a book I eventually published, Criminal Activity in the Deep South: An Annotated Bibliography, 1700-1930 [1989]. 

The article below originally appeared in Alabama Living V1N4, Jan/Feb1981 pp 29-31. I covered Rube Burrow, John Wesley Hardin, Morris Slater [aka Railroad Bill] and Stephen Renfroe. 

In the near future I plan to post my article on the years Texas gunfighter Hardin spent in Alabama. And then there are some Alabama medical history articles...

My article didn't make the cover, but Miss Alabama Paige Phillips did. 

Some Family Photos Winter 1954

I've done a few posts on this blog exploring old family photographs. One included some photos taken at the Chandler Street house years after my toddler pictures below. I've also written one about a family vacation at the beach in 1956 and a group of family photos from the 1960s. 

Now we come to some examples from the winter of 1954. I turned two that March 3. Most of these photos were taken at my paternal grandparents' house at 1313 Chandler Street in Gadsden. We lived in Huntsville but visited Rosa Mae and Amos Wright numerous times over the years. 

My family is blessed--or cursed--with hundreds of photographs old and new. I'm sure I'll be exploring more subjects in the future. 

Happy, happy, joy, joy!

I was always looking at rocks or sticks. 

I don't seem quite as happy here as in the first photograph.

Here I am with dad, Amos J. Wright, Jr. He probably took most of these photos, but presumably my grandfather took this one.

I presume that photographer's shadow is dad's. Someone else standing to the right? 

Look, dad, a shadow!

Prepare to get wet, dad!

My grandmother Rosa Mae Wright died in January 1997, shortly before her 97th birthday. My grandfather Amos J. Wright, Sr., had died in 1975. These color photos were taken the day in 1997 when my brother Richard and I came to get the final items out of the house. 

Here's the back yard where we all spent so much time over the years.

Richard is standing in the driveway close to where I was standing--or sitting--in some of those photos above 43 years earlier. 

Here I am as a young sprout between my paternal grandparents, Amos Jasper Wright, Sr., and Rosa Mae Wright. I'm not sure where this photo was taken but I'm looking pretty young here; I was born in March 1952. You can see my grandparents in 1918 in this post about my grandfather's World War I training in Auburn. 

Dead Towns of Alabama: Oxanna

There once was a place called Oxanna...perhaps a town on the yellow brick road to Oz? Let's investigate.

I've written before about Falco, a pretty much dead town in south Alabama just above the Florida line in Covington County. That town rose and fell with the timber industry; Oxanna's story is a bit different. 

In 1872 the Woodstock Iron Company was formed by Samuel Noble, Daniel Tyler,, and their families to build a furnace that would produce quality charcoal pig iron in Calhoun County. The company developed the private community of Anniston to support this effort; only workers, their families and other relevant individuals could live there. By 1880 the town had a population of 942.

In the spring of 1883 the Georgia Pacific Railroad being built from Atlanta to Birmingham reached Anniston. The town abandoned its exclusivity, and Woodstock planned to sell lots to anyone. Railroad developers John B. Gordon, his brother and others formed the Southern Development, Land and Immigration Company to purchase a small valley between Anniston and Oxford. They began development of "Central City" which was soon renamed Oxanna. 

The new town was expected to have areas for business, manufacturing and residences, sidewalks, and a first class hotel. The Oxanna Tribune newspaper began publication in September 1883. The Oxanna Hotel thrived for a period until the much fancier Anniston Inn opened in spring 1885. In 1886 the town incorporated and elected a mayor and council. 

By 1900 Oxanna had reached a population of 1184; Oxford had 1372 people and Anniston had boomed to 9695. Oxanna had soldiered on, but in the following year a successful petition from Anniston citizens to the legislature resulted in annexation of the smaller town. 

Wikipedia has a list of Alabama ghost towns, but neither Falco nor Oxanna are on it. The two also do not appear in W. Stuart Harris' Dead Towns of Alabama, first published in 1977.

I wrote a blog post in 2018 "Whatever Happened to Powhatan and Praco?" that examined the fates of those now-dead Jefferson County mining towns. My mother was born in Powhatan; one of her sisters, my aunt Marjorie, was born in Praco. I've also done "Whatever Happened to Advance, Alabama?"  I plan to examine more disappeared Alabama towns in the future. 

Newspaper articles below were found via the Library of Congress' Chronicling America database. 

Further Reading

Grace Hooten Gates has written extensively on the early history of Anniston and provides some information on Oxanna in her works. Her book The Model City of the New South: Anniston, Alabama, 1872-1900 was published in 1978. Her article "Anniston: Model City and Rival City" appeared in the Alabama Review in January 1978. That article has a good account of the rivalry between Anniston and Oxanna. Another of her articles, "Anniston: Transition from Company Town to Public Town" was published in the January 1984 issue of the Alabama Review. 

Savannah Morning News 15 October 1883 

Birmingham Age-Herald 11 January 1901

During it's short life, Oxanna had its share of troubles:

Birmingham Age-Herald 29 September 1899

Birmingham Age-Herald 8 September 1900

From George F. Cram's 1904 Alabama map, which shows Oxanna as a separate town. 

Source: University of Alabama Historical Maps

And now for something completely random....

Sacramento Daily Record-Union 20 Nov 1890

Source: ebay

“Bradycrotine, the Southern Woman's Headache Cure, was made in Macon GA by Dr. Welch.”

Alabama Photos: A Mobile Youth Orchestra in 1937

I found the first photograph below in D. Antoinette Handy's Black Women in American Bands and Orchestras [1981]. Then I found it and a related photo at a web site devoted to the history of America's New Deal during the Great Depression. The photos show a girls' orchestra performing in Mobile under the auspices of the National Youth Administration. Let's investigate.

President Franklin Roosevelt signed an executive order creating the National Youth Administration in June 1935 and it operated as part of the Works Progress Administration until 1939. The NYA was discontinued in 1943 as the economic effects of World War II began to take effect. The agency paid grants to young people aged 16 to 25 to assist with job training and actual jobs in public works and service projects. That web site on the New Deal I mentioned has some detail from the NYA's final report about the orchestras sponsored by the agency. 

There is another important Alabama connection at the NYA. The agency's Executive Director for its entire existence was Aubrey Willis Williams, who was born in Springville in St. Clair County on August 23, 1890. Despite his impoverished background, by the time he was 30 he had earned a PhD at the University of Bordeaux in France and begun a career in social work in Ohio and Wisconsin. President Roosevelt appointed him as Assistant Federal Relief Administrator under Harry Hopkins, an important New Deal figure and a close advisor to FDR.

When the National Youth Administration was organized, Roosevelt selected  Williams to direct it. One of his early tasks required him to appoint a Youth Director for each of the 48 states; he picked future president Lyndon Baines Johnson to head the operation in Texas. The 26 year-old Johnson soon earned a reputation for fairness that included black participation in the agency's programs. This experience may have influenced President Johnson's Great Society programs and efforts such as Job Corps and Upward Bound.

In 1945 after the NYA had been dissolved, Roosevelt appointed Williams to be director of the Rural Electrification Administration. His support of blacks in federal programs meant that Southern senators did not support him and  blocked his nomination.

He returned to Alabama to continue civil rights work, but attacks by Southern politicians who wanted to link integration and communism continued. These men included the powerful senator from Mississippi James Eastland and Governor George Wallace.

In 1945 Williams and Alabama journalist Gould Beech had purchased The Southern Farmer newspaper and turned it into a venue for liberal opinion and activity in the South. The paper eventually failed, and Williams returned to Washington, D.C., in the early 1960s. Despite suffering from stomach cancer, he attended Martin Luther King, Jr.'s March on Washington in August 1963. Williams died on March 15, 1965.  

Source: U.S. National Archives via the New Deal of the Day site

Aubrey Willis Williams [1890-1965]

Source: Library of Congress via Wikipedia