Alabama Memories On Road Trip Day 3 With My Dad / Black Widow of Anniston / Bo Jackson Avenue & MORE
Day 3 of May 2021 Road Trip With My Dad
Transcript
0:03
welcome everyone adam the woo here today
0:03
number three
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of a road trip that i am
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taking with my dad we are at the the
0:11
corner
0:12
of highway 78
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i'm inviting you to join me and my dad
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as he explains
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what we're going to be doing while
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starting off and going throughout the
0:22
course of the day shall you
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take it away dad us highway
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78. is the road that i took
0:31
54 years ago
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traveling from my home in mississippi
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to just outside atlanta georgia
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east point georgia go to college uh
0:44
and to prepare for the ministry u.s
0:47
highway 78
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runs right by anniston alabama
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east back we're going eastbound over to
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anniston
0:59
let's do it i forgot to i forgot to i
1:02
forgot to tell you
1:05
we lived in anniston two different times
1:13
first time we lived in anniston i
1:13
preached at a place called the indian
1:15
oaks
1:16
christian church second time we lived in
1:20
i preached at the welburn christian
1:23
church
1:24
and when i preached at the welburn
1:26
christian church i had to work a second
1:28
job
1:30
at a print company called
1:33
higginbotham printing i thought you
1:37
maybe you worked here at little winga i
1:39
dreamed of that
1:40
did you ever pass by and get any wings
1:43
from a little windows never got any
1:44
wings here nope
1:45
nope so we're gonna i may have stopped
1:47
and got a coca-cola you might have
1:49
yeah i do like the coca-cola nostalgia
1:51
so we're gonna go by the print shop
1:53
higgenbach higgin higginbotham
1:56
higginbotham and then we're gonna go by
1:59
over out to the indian oaks church all
2:01
right sounds good okay
2:08
made it downtown anderson now
2:08
found the print shop
2:14
see the lettering up on the side of the
2:14
wall there picking bottom printing this
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is where i worked
2:19
back in 1974 75
2:22
this was the main entrance to the office
2:25
area here
2:26
for the print shop
2:31
and i was a delivery driver for the
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print shop what year would that have
2:33
been
2:34
74.75 i was born in 74 so you were
2:38
working here the first year of my life
2:40
i was now you'll notice down here
2:43
there's a
2:44
and uh another doorway
2:48
with a pull-up door thing you see it
2:50
from here i can see it
2:52
it's like is that where the delivery
2:53
truck pulled up that was where i would
2:54
pull up with the delivery truck and
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all the print stuff would come out all
2:59
the print shop was out that way and then
3:01
the delivery would come out that door
3:02
and i would think this stuff yeah
3:04
that is that is so neat that the
3:06
lettering is still up there
3:08
no longer in operation
3:18
wow that is cool
3:18
you were working here as long as i've as
3:20
long as i've been alive
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well you were working here when i was
3:24
right after i was born that's a better
3:25
way to explain it
3:26
and you see someone has a little damage
3:30
down here there's a few items in there
3:32
some shelving
3:34
a desk chair and other accessories
3:41
not too much though little memories of
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the past
3:47
the downtown area is very very
3:47
nostalgic it's like stepping back in
3:49
time with the wrecks all there
3:52
the clock in the middle
3:55
yeah it's like time just stopped through
3:57
here check it out
3:59
old movie theater there it says coming
4:02
soon
4:02
star wars what
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i'm going to say classic truck alert but
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i was looking at this
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retro coca-cola sign with the sports car
4:16
up on top and we're about to turn onto
4:18
saks
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road what's down sax road that's the
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house first house we lived in the first
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time we lived in anderson
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the first of the the two homes in anna
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we lived here twice yeah this is the
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first house we lived in we're going to
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that
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down sacks avenue or saks road sax road
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turn here all right we're looking at a
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photo here of
4:51
your mom and i were driving a volkswagen
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we lived at this house
4:53
on saks road in anniston alabama
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that's what it looked like and this is
4:59
what it looks like today
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52-32 sax road same awning
5:06
yeah the same little on of course we're
5:07
looking the opposite direction right out
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front there's a sidewalk now and there's
5:11
not as the
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little dirt driveway is angled
5:14
differently
5:15
yep same place though right on the
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corner you have that volkswagen bug and
5:20
you're gonna tell a story about that
5:21
volkswagen bug
5:22
when we get down to the church building
5:23
i'll tell you the story about the
5:24
volkswagen yep yeah
5:26
it involves a file cabinet
5:29
and not going well with moving it yeah
5:31
it was an interesting story
5:33
you should have been there
5:39
how cool there's the angle of the
5:39
picture
5:39
right about like that
5:45
we're now going to head down lindlock
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lane
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and this sax hardware you have some
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memories of this too right now this was
5:51
not always a sax hardware
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this used to be a vacant gravel lot
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had kind of a fence around it uh and
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they would have six or eight of these
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big trash dumpsters
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and all the community would bring their
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household garbage
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drop them into these dumpsters
6:14
and they would come empty them out once
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a week they wouldn't they wouldn't come
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by your door
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no they didn't come to the house you
6:20
brought the garbage here it was a
6:21
communal
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dumping station for the local residents
6:25
now it's a hardware store high march is
6:29
on
6:34
there's the sign right there so this is
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the dip you were talking about with the
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bug
6:36
and the the volkswagen and the uh with
6:39
the
6:39
bio cap cabinet i'll tell that story in
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a minute but this is where it happened
6:43
this is where it happened at the little
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cusp here
6:47
very distinct building
6:55
back in the day who's not standing in
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front of
6:56
that's me and june my mom and you that's
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bus
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yep wow i have no idea who took the
7:05
maybe you had it on tripod no i didn't
7:08
have a tripod that's that same spotlight
7:11
all rusted out there sure is
7:22
this is before i was born you were right
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you were at this 1972
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and none of these houses all new
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development
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and there was i don't even think there
7:30
was a road there i don't think that
7:32
driveway existed
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yeah all of this was excess mounted dirt
7:37
right here
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i was the minister here in 1972 for
7:42
exactly 52 sundays
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this awning here for the car to pull
7:49
under and let people out in the rain
7:51
that did not exist originally
8:00
and this was not asphalt this was gravel
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all this parking exactly one year
8:04
52 weeks yeah that's all that they could
8:07
put up with me for
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oh my goodness see these volleyball
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goals uh posts over here
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i don't know if those are the original
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ones or not they look like they could be
8:21
this rusty looking one could very well
8:23
be
8:24
from 50 years ago
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but we would set these up
8:32
yonder that fence was not there and that
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half of the building see the white door
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yeah that's where the building ended
8:44
right where their air conditioning unit
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is and that was just
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basically a hole in the ground where
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they hoped one day to fill the add-on
8:51
which now obviously they have
8:53
but we would set up the volleyball net
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after church
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and play volleyball after church
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out here that is neat
9:35
is this hallway the same that's more
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modern
9:36
and decorative but yes the same hallway
9:43
and i see based on that stairwell that
9:43
you see ahead of us there
9:45
that the side unit that they ultimately
9:47
built
9:49
in that hole i was saying a minute ago
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is a two-story deal goes downstairs
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so tell me the tale of the file cabinet
9:59
and your vehicle
10:00
well after uh my last sunday
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i had to move all the stuff out of my
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office which i had here
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in one of the rooms here at the building
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and all i had to transport it on
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was the volkswagen and had this huge
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four drawer file cabinet
10:20
so i took all the file cabinet drawers
10:23
out
10:24
put them in the backseat of my
10:25
volkswagen
10:27
but i had to put that big file cabinet
10:29
somewhere so
10:30
i didn't have any rope so somebody of
10:33
mine told me
10:34
hey man you know you can take some
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string and and
10:37
braid it together and you can make a
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rope and something oh that's what i'll
10:40
do
10:41
so i took some string and i braided you
10:43
know three or four pieces of string
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together i made i made a
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rope while the rope broke
10:50
when i went down that hill to go out to
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the street
10:54
and the weight of the file cabinet broke
10:57
the two
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ropes the string in the back and it fell
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down
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on the top of my volkswagen i mean the
11:03
hood of my volkswagen
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and mangled the file cabinets
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and dented i have my votes i have seen
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with my own eyes the dented file cabinet
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and it was all mangled and i took it
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home and
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bit it back out and you used it for
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years you remember
11:22
i do at the house it was the rusty i
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never knew the back story on it though
11:27
it happened right down there at the
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bottom of the hill
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i still remember the sensation driving
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the volkswagen down the hill
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and then suddenly
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oh man that's funny memories i'll tell
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you
11:47
49 years ago
11:50
you and mom and standing right here
11:57
wow a year from now will be the 50th
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anniversary of that photograph
12:02
oh there's a date right here this says
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1970
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so that is when they built the building
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the building was built in 70.
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two years later you ministered here
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there's a bunch of red ants
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some of that alabama clay
12:19
i could just superimpose mom in
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to there we back up a bit and get the
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same spotlight
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mom just got to live vicariously by
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watching this
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there was also a a notable personality
12:43
uh infamous infamous
12:47
that means they're more than famous that
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went here
12:51
can you explain a little bit about her
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yeah there was a family that came here
12:55
when i was the minister
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let's see we had grandma uh her daughter
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and her husband
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and two kids and uh the
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fame the lady that became infamous was
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uh marie hilly
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and uh also known as later on maybe the
13:14
television movie about her called the
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black widow
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the black widow yeah they were members
13:19
here came here when i preached here
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i even ate at her house once
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how you feeling i did pretty good and
13:27
she
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and her husband which is a tangled
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web no pun intended with the black widow
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they are laid to rest here in town they
13:37
are we could go by and see
13:38
we're gonna go by the cemetery yeah you
13:40
were born in 1974
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uh we were living at the time
13:47
verona mississippi
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about three weeks later we moved back
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to anniston for the second time
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and we had a mobile home and this is the
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mobile home we had
14:02
and there you and your mama
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outside our mobile home that's the
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mobile home we lived in like a month or
14:11
two old
14:12
something like that because boring
14:13
tupelo moved over here about as about a
14:16
month or two old
14:16
exactly now we have
14:20
tried to find this online and now we're
14:23
going to visually go try to see it
14:25
maybe it will jar something in your
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memory hopefully it will and we'll just
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drive around so we can see something
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that maybe looks familiar like a cross
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street now this is a double
14:33
wide mobile home in a
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mobile home park built for single wide
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trailers
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so we were an oddity in this little
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neighborhood
14:43
here's a one more shot at our front door
14:47
you'll see us looks like it says number
14:48
13 on the garbage can
14:50
yeah lot 13
14:53
or whichever one it is yeah this is like
14:57
the the power
14:58
unit or whatever that's called the next
14:59
photo is the garbage can
15:01
oh you're right it is the power unit yup
15:03
you're right yeah this is uh this is
15:05
june this is me and that's a
15:07
little you oh me little you
15:10
what's the last photo or is that the
15:11
last one uh that's the
15:13
oh this is the uh original welburn
15:16
church we're gonna go by there too right
15:17
exactly so you met in a house we did
15:20
when
15:21
right after right after i left this
15:23
church here
15:24
they want me to come preach for them
15:26
until we move to mississippi so
15:28
okay so we'll try to find both of those
15:29
i know this is this is all
15:31
kind of confusing chronologically for
15:33
everybody because watching before i was
15:35
born this is 73
15:37
where this is 74. correct nonetheless
15:39
it's all still in the same town
15:41
yes once this group formulated into an
15:43
actual
15:44
church organization they invited me to
15:47
come back
15:48
then in 1974 after you were born this is
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only main road coming off of the highway
15:55
back there
15:56
going toward the welburn church where i
15:59
preached
16:00
that we could possibly look for that
16:02
mobile home park where we lived
16:05
that's why we're going this way now this
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is the first
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sunday that the group that became the
16:12
welburn christian church
16:14
met in these people's house right here
16:17
for that first sunday service and i was
16:19
their preacher before you guys got the
16:21
the church
16:22
building this is before we move to
16:24
mississippi
16:26
this is after we left the indian oaks
16:30
but before we moved to mississippi only
16:32
about a year and a half later to move
16:35
back
16:36
to welbert and there's my mom right
16:38
there in the center of the screen with
16:40
the blue dress on
16:42
bottom of that stairs yep you see how it
16:44
dated june
16:45
73 that have been january january of 73
16:49
so
16:50
eight months before i was born and the
16:53
staircase is right there
16:55
that's the place my mama would have been
16:57
standing right there at the bottom of
16:58
that that staircase
16:59
oh wow that's amazing
17:02
we met at a ymca
17:09
here's the building now after the ymca
17:09
they built this
17:11
correct so the picture i just showed was
17:13
at the house
17:15
this was the original this was the very
17:17
first sunday meeting
17:18
the photo in front of the house down the
17:20
hill correct and then the ymca
17:22
and then they started meeting in a ymca
17:25
while i was preaching in mississippi
17:28
okay and then they built this building
17:29
then they invited me to come back and
17:32
preach for them
17:32
in the ymca and then i left and moved to
17:37
oklahoma and then they built this
17:59
well i appreciate you've been very
17:59
helpful and very grateful i'll give mr
18:01
bird a call and see if i can
18:03
find out anything else
18:14
you've been a sweetheart
18:14
i appreciate that thank you very much
18:18
bye-bye
18:25
our dad was just on the phone made a
18:25
couple calls
18:27
came to find out that what we thought
18:29
was the ymca was a
18:31
was a club that has since been torn down
18:34
many years ago so no luck there still
18:37
haven't had any luck finding the trailer
18:39
park
18:40
tried a couple other options there is a
18:42
sinclair gas station here
18:44
still operational as a mechanic check
18:47
out those classic cars sitting in front
18:50
we have found
19:11
frank passed away in 75 and marie in 87.
19:11
did you ever meet frank i did meet frank
19:19
it's always fascinating to me that they
19:19
are laid to rest next to each other
19:22
because if you know the story of what
19:24
happened
19:26
he probably does not want to be laid
19:28
next to her
19:29
after what she did to him chances are he
19:32
doesn't even know
19:33
that's also a good very good point
19:36
however
19:38
it's a it's a very it's a i was saying
19:41
with the tangled web
19:43
but there's a it's there's a lot of
19:45
depth to this
19:47
actually changed her name a couple of
19:50
times
19:51
and she escaped from jail
19:55
and that's how she ended up getting sick
19:58
and passing on
19:59
yeah that's the way i heard the story as
20:01
well but she was going to be put away
20:03
for her life
20:04
yeah but they let her out for a short
20:06
time
20:07
thinking that she would not make a run
20:09
for it and she did
20:15
and then she ended up here next to her
20:16
husband
20:21
her first husband because she did
20:21
remarry which she did remarried after
20:23
she changed her name
20:24
right this gentleman frank
20:29
who you had dinner at frank and marie's
20:32
home i did
20:35
i don't remember wow you don't remember
20:38
you don't remember what you had for
20:39
dinner
20:46
hopefully it wasn't powdery hopefully it
20:46
didn't have
20:47
layers of powder in it
20:58
anyway that's a little tie-in well it's
20:58
not a nice tie-in it's a tie-in
21:00
nonetheless
21:10
this is forest lawn forest green
21:10
forest lawrenceton lawrence
21:13
his name is lawrence lawrence thanks
21:16
jameson
21:17
his name is james jesterton
21:20
we're like this
21:26
dirty rotten scoundrels humor forest
21:26
lawn gardens
21:28
is where marie and frank
21:38
his name is james jesterton i know a guy
21:38
i met him on a train
21:45
went ahead and just fueled up gas is
21:48
still
21:49
very difficult 299 i had about a half a
21:52
tank i actually filled up this morning
21:54
earlier so i'm just trying to always top
21:56
it off because
21:58
there is not a whole heck of a lot of
22:00
gas to be found
22:02
even on the corner over here at that
22:04
station nothing but
22:05
bags over the top of the nozzle that's a
22:08
very loud truck
22:10
and it appears to be multiple states are
22:13
now
22:13
out of fuel not a good situation but
22:16
carrying on with the road trip just kind
22:19
of think ahead and always
22:21
top it off whenever you whenever you see
22:23
a station that does have gas drove a
22:24
little bit of a ways
22:26
down i-20 and stopped off there is gas
22:30
however not only at the station i just
22:32
fueled up at
22:34
but also at bucky's bucky's
22:37
has arrived in alabama
22:46
interesting i believe i'll go in get
22:46
myself a
22:47
piping hot caffeinated beverage
22:54
you've never been to bucky's right there
22:57
you go
22:58
first time meeting bucky before you're
23:01
in for a treat
23:03
i call this the like a disneyland
23:07
of trucks gas state well no truckers no
23:09
truckers well truckers are allowed
23:12
but their trucks are not allowed right
23:14
so you're allowed
23:16
as a former trucker but if you had one
23:18
of your former trucks
23:19
you could not park it here i have to
23:21
park it over there and walk and walk
23:22
over
23:23
a couple of macadamia nut cookies there
23:25
macadamia nut cookies i went with the
23:27
buck ease nug ease and a
23:31
creamsicle and i got myself a sandwich i
23:34
believe you know what i can't remember i
23:36
think it's maybe a turkey sandwich or
23:37
maybe pulled pork i can't remember what
23:39
i got
23:40
again oh it says true bucky's club
23:43
that's what it is a club sandwich
23:45
i'm also thinking maybe i should get
23:46
some sort of merchandise designating
23:48
this location yeah i think i should here
23:50
we go i'm going to go ahead and get the
23:51
leeds alabama
23:52
bucky shirt drove a little bit of a ways
23:54
pulled into
23:55
bessemer town of bessemer and down this
23:59
hill around this corner
24:01
is where bo jackson heisman trophy
24:05
winner
24:06
played for the auburn tigers and the
24:09
raiders
24:10
professional football career one of my
24:13
favorite athletes from my youth
24:15
had all his baseball cards football
24:17
cards
24:18
watched all the games he played
24:21
and the street he grew up on is right
24:24
around this corner
24:26
there we go bo jackson avenue the corner
24:29
of
24:29
merit street now i recall back in 1990
24:34
an interview for 2020 i believe the
24:38
interviewer was stone phillips
24:47
and they showed this very home which
24:49
still has the auburn flag
24:51
flying and that interview took place
24:55
with beau walking right down the street
24:59
could just picture a young bo
25:01
jackson playing football with his
25:02
friends right here in this road
25:04
i found one little screen grab from that
25:06
you see the house behind there
25:09
where stone phillips and bo are walking
25:12
that is this house here now abandoned
25:16
and
25:17
dilapidated they were walking right past
25:19
here camera was following them and
25:20
a little walk and talk an interview with
25:23
bo
25:24
as well as this one you can see the same
25:26
gate even though the house has been
25:29
repainted that's the one
25:33
all right moving on and about another
25:35
hour away
25:36
made it over to tuscaloosa now on the
25:39
corner of
25:41
paul w bryant and greensboro
25:44
paul was also known as bear bryant the
25:47
coach
25:48
the university of alabama and go by the
25:50
stadium
25:56
rivals of the auburn tigers bo jackson
25:56
played for
25:58
i felt it fitting to go by both now i
26:00
know the auburn stadium is jordan
26:02
hare you know the name of alabama
26:06
bryant denny bryant denny stadium
26:10
there it is all its glory
26:19
seventh largest in the us i have never
26:19
attended a game at this stadium i did go
26:21
to an auburn game once with you in fact
26:24
we went on it was on halloween eve back
26:27
in the 80s when they opened the the new
26:30
upper deck section that was you know
26:34
34 years ago well give or take a year
26:37
there's a place here called rama jamas
26:40
i bet that's pretty hopping and hopping
26:43
on game day
26:45
there's the elephant right there with
26:46
this tusks and its
26:48
nose snout to the air
26:58
tuscaloosa not far from the state line
26:58
the next state line we'll be going
26:59
through
27:06
tomorrow
27:06
that's gonna do it for today i'll see
27:09
you in the next video
27:10
the vlog is
27:18
the truck backing up the vlog
27:21
is over oh yeah one last thing got a
27:24
hotel over there next to the
27:26
the interstate the freeway grabbing a
27:28
bike to eat before
27:30
go check in for the night there is an
27:33
open
27:34
captain deez i had no idea that captain
27:38
dees
27:40
was still around