Each year, our state tourism office promotes Alabama with a different focus: this year, it’s the “Year of Alabama History”
I don’t think the website is completely finished, though – I’m hoping that they will put up better links for the trails they mention, like Aviation, Food & Wine, Literary, Music, etc. One nice section is the one with videos of historic places, and several pieces with Kathryn Tucker Windham doing some storytelling. The only thing is, though: Who is Gary!? hahaha! I’m going to email the web people today and let them know that it should say “Jeffrey”. I hope they will get a big laugh out of that too…every second-grader in Alabama knows about KTW and her ghost, Jeffrey!
When I was in sixth grade, my English teacher told us that she was friends with KTW and that once when she called her house that Jeffrey answered the phone. (Okay, here I go waaay off the subject…) This was the same teacher that told us girls that if we ever left our purses in her classroom that we would not get them back. I don’t have the faintest reason why she would say such a thing, maybe because 6th grade is the first time most of us girls ever wore a purse and she wanted to make an impression that we had better remember them – but sure enough, I forgot mine in her class one day. She did give it back to me, but it was missing one thing: the tiny little bottle of Estee Lauder Youth Dew that my Nanny had bought me. I didn’t say a thing. Oh, and this was such a big deal, because up until then the fanciest perfume I had – well, the fanciest perfume any 6th grader would ever need, really – was Love’s Baby Soft! I was just heartbroken the next day when my teacher walked in the room smelling like…I couldn’t believe it…Youth Dew. Oh I sure did hope that was just a coincidence!!
The only other thing I remember about that teacher was that she told us all that she went to school with Polly Holliday (Flo, the “kiss my grits” waitress on ‘Alice’), who was from Jasper, Alabama.
With friends like KTW, Jeffrey, and Polly Holliday, I was starry-eyed and thought my teacher was just next-to-famous.
I thus forgave her regarding my Youth Dew.