Going to Alabama with a banjo on my knee

For much of my life I have been a little embarrassed about my cultural heritage - not the part that had me growing up in New Jersey - this I have worn with a "don't fuck with me" misplaced sense of pride, but of the part that had all of my relatives living in Birmingham Alabama, where my parents grew up and we often visited.

Alabama is lush and green, covered in trees and flowers. The weather is mild. Yes, there is the occasional tornado and they get more than their fair share of humidity, but they deal with that with reinforced stairwells (for the tornados) and wrap-around porches and air conditioning.

Alabama is a strange place to be sure. Time quite literally stops there. My grandmother still gets her hair "done" once a week (done means washed and styled, then shen can't touch it for a week) and you can still find plenty of beehive hairdos.

Vulcan watches over the city.

The hours tick by slower than the last days of elementary school of June. I will only be down there for 5 days; it will feel like a month.

Mercifully (see, the southern drawl is taking hold already) one of the things that has improved there is the food. While I love grits as much as the next girl, I'm not much on fried okra or biscuits and gravy.

The best part about Alabama is the people. I have never been made to feel so welcome anywhere in my life. People always seem genuinely interested to meet me and want me to feel comfortable and at home with them. They call me "Hon," tease me with familiar affection and always remember to bring out something special for the kids. This takes some getting used to, but we can get used to being spoiled.

The worst part about Alabama is the people. I have never been in a society that was both so integrated and so segregated. The racism is close enough to the surface so that it bubbles up freely in "polite conversation" (meaning, I don't really know you, but I know you well enough to believe that you are just as much of a racist as me). My grandfather was the worst. He always cracked himself up with jokes that even as a child I knew were wrong. I had a hard time reconciling how someone I loved so much could say things that were so despicable.

I'm going to Alabama because my grandmother is 86 years old and, as my sister pointed out when she was guilting me into flying across the country with my girls, this trip could be our last. Memaw (I named her when I was 5 and yes, my naming services are available for hire ) is very frail, and suffers from a number of maladies that are slowly rendering her blind, deaf, weak and physically unstable. We spend most of our time with her sitting down. (Aging really sucks, by the way.)

We are going for Easter, which means only eggs and candy for the girls, and not much more than that for me, but which means everything for Memaw. We will go to church, and have a special dinner out. She will see her "greats" and we will have some quality family time. We will take the multi-generation photos that Memaw treasures so much.

I will try to send pictures (not family photos as much as the ones that I think might entertain you) from the road. I won't have much access to the internet so the pictures will only have as much text as I can stand to type in from my phone...