Good beginning - at Panera. We had our usual: I had a bear claw, Gary had a cinnamon crunch bagel and a chocolate chip bagel and we both had coffee - one of those bottomless cups. Then a good friend of ours called and we chatted for a while catching up on each other’s activities. She’s in a ‘dead zone’ as far as wi-fi, and cell phone service so, while she and Jerry, her husband were in the ‘outside world’, she called.
I’m batting 1.000 so far. Let’s keep it up. Into Mobile and Fort Conde which is a rebuilt fort with a VC in it. Nicely redone fort with several rooms of artifacts and a short military history of the Mobile Bay area. Then to the Mobile Museum and what a pleasant surprise. It was a marvelous museum, covering not only Mobile history but filled with special exhibits like: Mobile disasters, the Civil War in Mobile, slavery and the Jim Crow laws, Mardi Gras, famous sports and music figures in Mobile and several others. My favorite room was a huge banquet room with pictures of famous Mobilians covering the walls.
At the door was a book with the pictures and a description of what each of the people pictured on the wall did for Mobile.
Many cities sometimes neglect to cover the warts or they put a few pictures in the corner, hoping no tourist will spot them. Obviously they want to protect their reputation. Not Mobile, they cover the warts as well as the beauty marks. There is a nice exhibit about the musicians who made Mobile famous, there is an exhibit about slavery,
there is an exhibit about Mobile’s importance in the Civil War and there is a section on the Jim Crow laws.
They had an old 14th C dugout canoe. One August day in 1976, a Mobile area father and his son were out fishing in a lake north of town when they discovered a hollowed-out canoe stuck on a sandbar and partially submerged in water. Carbon dating took it back to about 1320 AD, 2 centuries before Europeans arrived on the shores of the area. It was made out of a cypress log with stone tools. What a find.
They had a separate room devoted to 6 miniatures built by Aaron Friedman. AFter he had built 2 miniatures, his wife asked him is he was going to make one for her. She wanted a Colonial with 6 columns and here is her house.
I particularly liked the circular staircase in the middle of the house.
When he was done, she needlepointed rugs and curtains while he make parquet floors.
We saw a 1940’s film on the effect of WWII on Mobile. The town of about 78,000 ballooned to 150,000 when shipbuilders geared up production during the war and workers streamed in. Obviously, Mobile did not have the infrastructure to accomodate all these new residents. Hommettes (pre-fabricated boxlike structures) were erected to provide temporary housing and ‘hotbedding’ was prevalent (with shifts, several people shared a bed and it was always warm from the previous resident). New schools were built but there were never enough seats for all the kids in town. Plumbing, electricity and sewage were terribly strained, roads, churches, parks, restaurants - all were needed. Then, when all was built, the war ended and many workers left and the new homes, schools and all the other infrastructure was left. Marvelous little film produced in the early 40’s, grainy, black and white but full of neat old news movies.
One display was about a local postman who was very involved in the Civil Rights movement. He typed over 50,000 and sent them to various officials in national, state, county and local governements. I really liked the display they made to show how many letters 50,000 is.
We both really enjoyed this museum and were there about 4 hours. It has good displays, a wealth of artifacts, great explanation about it all and it was extremely well presented and easy to follow. Sometimes, we don’t know which way to go in a museum, we turn the wrong corner and our chronology is all mixed up. Whoever manages the museum combines curatorial skills with great placement and a nice eye for arrangement.
Still batting 1.000. Now for a walk of the city. Nice day, lots of families downtown going to the big party at the Science Center, other tourists with cameras, a small family group singing carols at some of the local shops (just the food shops, however, maybe they had an ulterior motive) and just some hustle and bustle.
Then we saw the Moonpie Drop. Ooh. Here we are in Mobile, home of the famous Moonpie Drop. Maybe a little background, though it is a thin slice. Mobile has a large month-long Mardi Gras celebration every year and back in 1974, someone threw Moonpies to the crowd from one of the floats. And, the tradition just grew. Today, Mobile consumes more than 4,000,000 Moonpies annually and has adopted this sweet treat as a city icon. To comemorate this city favorite, Mobile and Chattanooga Bakery, the maker of the classic Moonpie have teamed up to drop a 12’ tall electronic Moonpie from the 34-story Trustmark building on New Year’s eve.
Now, I’m not sure that we’ll be here on New Year’s Eve at midnight to witness the Moonpie Drop first hand. In fact, I can almost guarantee that we will not be here. However, we decided to check out the Moonpie which is already in its rigging for its midnight drop. At the top is the rigging with the Moonpie at the bottom ready to be lifted 34 stories up and dropped at the stroke of Midnight.
Nancy and her new best friends all got the clothing memo.
We then wandered a bit more and found the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception with its glorious stained glass windows.
Here’s the ‘ugliest building in the city’ according to a Museum staffer. ‘And, it’s not even practical’, she said, ‘it leaks and whenever there is a big rainstorm they have to evacuate the building.’
I liked the skyline.
Finally, we had to leave since we wanted to be in Gulf Shores for the Christmas Boat Parade.
Lots of spectators lining the Intercoastal Waterway but the parade was a bit short and a bit disappointing.
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