A Specter of the Past

Thursday, November 17, 2016 Road Junkies 0 Comments

From Sea to Shining Sea, Day 5: Montgomery, AL

Today our day started with lunch, and we're not ashamed to admit it. Roadtripping is a lot of fun, but the older we get, the more toll we seem to be paying. So we slept a little later than usual and took some time to take care of a few things we were too tired to tend to last night (like writing yesterday's blog post).

Whole Foods made their debut in Montgomery last week, conveniently close to our hotel (and just off I-85). From the number of people crowding the bustling store to shop or indulge in a healthy lunch, locals must be wondering what took WF so long to get here.

WHOLE FOODS MAKES IT LOOK GOOD, TOO.

We both loaded our plates with samplings of savory dishes from the hot food bar, all nutritious and most quite flavorful. But the admitted star that stole the Whole Foods show was…a pecan pie cookie. This sugary, buttery confection was decidedly unhealthy, but it was so melt-in-your-mouth delicious we couldn't resist eating every crumb. If you're ever in a Whole Foods store, do yourself a favor and seek it out. Your taste buds will thank you.

THE DECADENT AND DELECTABLE PECAN PIE COOKIE

Still wiping drool from our chins, we headed about 20 miles north of Montgomery to an oxbow lake of the Alabama River near the town of Millbrook. We were looking for the town of Spectre, Alabama, on an island in Jackson Lake. You won't find it in any atlas, and no census takers will be collecting data there, but Google Maps was able to provide directions to the Town of Spectre (Google's designation). True to its moniker, Spectre is something of a specter.

IN THE TOWN OF SPECTRE, EVERYONE WAS LIBERATED FROM ALL THOSE SHOES.

In Tim Burton's 2004 film Big Fish, the main character visits a mysterious picture-perfect town in the middle of a forest, where all the citizens were so friendly and comfortable they spent their days wandering around town barefoot. Apparently, director Tim Burton couldn't find the perfect little community for his setting, so he had Spectre built from scratch on Jackson Lake Island. Of course, the buildings are just movie set facades with no interior walls and mostly artificial materials.

NO PEWS IN THIS CHURCH, NOT EVEN A FLOOR

Situated on a private island owned by a former Montgomery mayor, Spectre is not quite the idyllic hamlet it was in the movie. A number of buildings have collapsed and been removed; others are on the verge. The entrance to the causeway that takes you to the island is protected by a gate, but after paying a reasonable $3 per person at the unmanned toll booth, you call the posted phone number and are given the key code that magically opens the gate and grants you access to this fanciful town. Before leaving Spectre, we planted another in our series of "Hit the Brakes" letterboxes, our way of sharing this funky location with others.

SPANISH MOSS SEEMS TO LOVE CREPE MYRTLES BEST IN OAKWOOD CEMETERY.

On the way back into town, we stopped at the venerable Oakwood Cemetery to search for a couple of letterboxes. Most famous as the final resting place of Hank Williams, who was awarded his own annex, Oakwood is home to more than 200,000—equivalent to the city's living population. With graves dating back to the early 1800s, the cemetery's monuments mirror the trends that have ebbed and flowed over two centuries—gothic, Greek revival, art deco and others. Spanish moss grows in abundance, adding to the solemn atmosphere.

DEXTER AVENUE KING MEMORIAL BAPTIST CHURCH

Our next stop, and what turned out to be the final activity of the day, was Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church. While he was the pastor of this church within a stone's throw of the Alabama State Capitol building, Martin Luther King, Jr. was thrust into the national spotlight for his leadership role in organizing the Montgomery bus boycott—the first locally-led mass demonstration against racial discrimination. King set the stage and the tone for future grass-roots demonstrations with his insistence on nonviolent protests.

DEXTER AVENUE'S SANCTUARY STILL HAS THE ORIGINAL 1877 PEWS, NOW PADDED.

When we arrived, we found the church locked and a sign indicating we had missed the last tour of the day by almost an hour. With nothing to lose, we rang the doorbell next to the sign, never expecting a response. Much to our surprise, the door soon opened and the warm-hearted Wanda, this afternoon's tour guide, graciously invited us in. She was just taking her group to the sanctuary and asked us to join them. A Montgomery native herself, she regaled us with her intimate knowledge of the history of the church and the city.

WANDA LIKES TO PRESERVE MEMORIES OF THE VISITORS SHE MEETS AND GREETS.

Wanda is eminently suited as an ambassador for this place that she clearly loves. She learns every visitor's name and makes each one feel their participation is important to her and to the church. At the end of the tour, she even took the two of us downstairs to see the areas we had missed with our tardiness. One of those was the pastor's office. Standing in the room with its view of the capitol, where Martin Luther King wrote his sermons and met with those who became leaders in the civil rights movement was inspiring and humbling.

Tomorrow we'll return to US-80 and drive to Selma, over the route Dr. King led some 2,000 protestors in a 1965 march to the state capitol in Montgomery.

THURSDAY, 17 NOVEMBER 2016

• Started in: Montgomery, AL
• Ended in: Montgomery, AL
• Miles driven: 57 (845 total)
• Weather: 46° to 76°, sunny
• Letterboxes: 2 found, 1 planted
• Walked: 1.8 miles (11.8 total)
• States: AL
• Counties: 2
• Towns: 2
• Goats: 8
• Cormorants: 56
• Citizens in Spectre: 0
• Hugs we got from Wanda: 3 each

Loved: We are thrilled that Whole Foods has opened a store near the interstate in Montgomery. We pass through the city regularly on the way to south Alabama and often stop for lunch. We no longer need to discuss where. We had dinner there tonight and split another pecan pie cookie. We're only human!

Lacking: November weather. The temperature was pushing 80° today, not what experience has led us to expect from mid-November in this part of the country. We're looking forward to the cold front promised for tomorrow.

Learned: Wanda at Dexter Avenue was a wealth of information. Among other things, we learned from her that the church still has 20 members who were part of the congregation when Dr. King was pastor. That includes the organist, still active, whom he hired in 1955.

She also told us about George Wallace visiting the church after he became disabled to apologize for his previous obstructionist efforts against African Americans. He spoke to the congregation: "I have learned what suffering means. In a way that was impossible [before the shooting], I think I can understand something of the pain black people have come to endure. I know I contributed to that pain, and I can only ask your forgiveness." (Source of quote: Washington Post)

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