It’s Rooster Day in Demopolis, Alabama, the second annual festival commemorating the famous Rooster Sale of 1919. The auction of over 200 roosters and one hen, donated by Helen Keller, was to be the local contribution toward a bridge across the Tombigbee River, outside “the City of the People.” It would be the last link in an overland highway from Savannah, Georgia, to San Diego. The sale garnered pledges of more than $200,000, though accounts say many were never honored. I encourage you to search the subject, and be sure to search “Tombigbee flood Rooster Bridge towboat.”
When I was a young whelp in the early 80s, I hitched on with The Jackson Daily News in Jackson, Mississippi. As I was a native of east Alabama, on the Georgia line, I would travel home several times a year to visit family. This journey took me through west Alabama on U.S. Highway 80, then a narrow two-lane road from the Mississippi line to Selma, a distance of about 100 miles. This was before the rapacious scalping of southern woodlands for the export of wood chips, and for some distance forests would grow close along both sides of the right of way. It was like something out of Hansel and Gretel. Right in the middle of this stretch of “the widows’ highway” was the original Rooster Bridge outside Demopolis. It was a rickety iron structure high above the water that carried only one lane of traffic. There actually was a stoplight at each end. If it was green, it was safe to proceed; it it was red, you waited for oncoming traffic to clear. I managed to survive many a crossing at all hours of the day and night, and it was always a macabre highlight of the long drive.
That entire stretch of road is divided four-lane now, and the old Rooster Bridge is gone, replaced by a wide modern span just upstream, also named “Rooster Bridge.” A historical marker that stood at the old bridge has been moved to the new, and it details the unusual history of the rooster sale and the ambitious plan to “span the ‘Bigbee with cocks.” Really. It says that, cast in bronze on the shoulder of U.S. Highway 80. You can look it up.
165 responses to “Rooster Day, 2017”
The current team doing the Dick Tracy seems to like resurrecting other artist’s old strips. A couple of years ago they did a crossover with Little Orphan Annie. They have just finished up a storyline involving Will Eisner’s Spirit and now they are on Harold Teen. Never saw that strip before and had to look it up.
FYI, https://consumerist.com/2017/04/10/fresh-express-recalling-salad-mix-sold-at-walmart-after-2-people-find-dead-bat-in-their-food/
Perhaps the bat wasn’t organic?
So the age test has me at a very young 21. Thanks, but in years that was a long, long time ago. Mentally I think I’m about 25 or so, and when I look in a mirror I wonder what happened! As the joke goes, how can I act my age when I’ve never been this age before?
Ghost Sweetie, as to the glass of water on the nightstand, I had to replace mine with a toddler sippy cup. One of my cats decided I had put the glass there for him, and kept splashing the water out. The final straw came the night he turned the glass over. The next day I bought the sippy cup. 🙂
And while not a bridge, Atlanta does have Spaghetti Junction-aka the Tom Moreland Interchange.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfCTBRWHZ4c
We never asked but why was Jimmy at Rooster Days? We’re you in the parade?
Grand Marshall? King Rooster ? Cocktail of the Walk?
‘Emb, do they only hunt at night, owls that is?’
Snowy owls up in the tundra need to hunt in daylight in summer, but they often do throughout the year. Have read that other owls do as well, but do not remember which. Imagine you can search different owl spp. and see what Wiki and other sources say.
N.Am. owls include: barn, barred, boreal, burrowing, screech, ferruginous pygmy, flammulated, great gray, great horned, long-eared, hawk, northern pygmy, saw whet, short-eared [likely daytime], snowy, spotted.
O.W. owls include eagle owl [bigger version of our great horned], and little [the one on Athena’s shoulder, which our tour group saw atop the ruins of the brothel in Ephesus, Turkey], + others not handy at the moment.
Have fun. Peace,
Test later.
Mark in TTown, great shots! Thanks for sharing!
Ghost, I don’t know whether to be relieved or worried; the survey says I’m 22. Could I be heading for my second childhood? I feel about 35 most of the time.
Steve, hoping for a soft and gentle spring in Michigan this year, and blessings and comfort for your family.
David, I am jealous of your garden. Up here, the onions and garlic are showing about 5 inches of green. My spinach and lettuce went in late and are just seed leaves at this point.
Debbe, your story about the dirt made me think of how much fun it was to play in the big dirt piles when homes were being built in our neighborhood. Still love the smell and feel of good soil.
Jerry, hugs!
Went out and weeded for about ten minutes which produced about a yard of weeds and grass. Out of one bed. Yard is full of blooming things.
Going to pull a Janis and pull weeds this week I hope. It makes me happy.
Right now I am going to shut down laundry long enough to go wash Black Jack and go to post office.
Bullet has been neglected due to my week+ bout with Crudus Majora, and he needs a bath, too. This morning it appeared he had sat out in a rain storm that was immediately followed by a dust storm.
Jackie, I’ve no plans for Easter, and don’t even know what date it is this year. I am, however, attending a Seder at the local Chabad this evening.
The is true of course, my bad. We are not all Christians or even religious and honestly going to see Dirty Dancing, the musical, can hardly be holiday appropriate.
In fact bunnies, eggs and candy can hardly be considered a Christian festival any more than Halloween can be thought pagan. In fact Christmas and Thanksgiving have both moved out of the pale into the secular realm.
You are indeed taking part in a religious ritual, not I.
Jackie
April 16 we are having Corned Beef, Potatoes, Sauerkraut, as of yet undecided Veg.
Muffins and maybe Pretzels from the local bakery/coffee shop.
When I was a child, I thought nap time was punishment. Now it’s like a
mini-vacation.
“GOOD FRIENDS ARE THE RARE JEWELS OF LIFE…
DIFFICULT TO FIND AND IMPOSSIBLE TO REPLACE!
“Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.” – Mark Twain
Happily, I can say I am running three-for-three at the moment.
New Twain quote for me but I love his. Like Oscar Wilde, the man could just spout off the cuff quotables.
Debbe:
Thanks for the laugh!
A little while ago, the treatment of Native Americans was a topic here.
This evening, I found this: http://www.likesharetweet.com/inspiring/amazing-facts-native-americans/
Don’t view the 40 slides unless you want to be profoundly saddened and depressed.
I can also recommend a superb book: “Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto.”
I read it about 30 years ago, and it opened my eyes even further. It is a book not for the faint of heart.
emb:
Silence also explains and confirms much.
Ghost,
You reminded me of a poem I read long ago in a chess magazine:
There are five reasons why we drink;
Good food, good friends or if we’re dry, or lest we become so by and by,
Or any other reason why!
(I like Chivas)
Another similar poem: I only drink at ship christenings, cornerstone layings and days that end in “Y”!
Test had me at 31, real age 78 & 3/4 as of March 28.
Sorry to be away so much but I made a New Years’ resolution not to look at the internet on Sunday and I have kept it.
God bless us every one. God bless the USA.
domaucan1:
“God bless us every one. God bless the USA.”
I heartily agree. Amen.
Once, sitting with some USAF buddies and SO’s on an outdoor deck, we started taking turns toasting things, after which each of us would take a sip of our adult-beverage-of-choice. After a while, we either ran out of toasts (or had become memory-impaired) and during the lull, I noticed a leaf fall onto the deck.
“To the leaf!” I cried, lifting my ABOC.
Got voted best toast of the night.
I guess you had to be there.
Ghost, from what I understand, for a Chinese banquet to include a fish that’s been cooked whole, brought to the table intact and disassembled at the table for serving. If so, it’s customary for the after dinner toasts to include one for the fish. I’d think that at Thanksgiving, a toast to the turkey would be appropriate.
Rick, unsure about Custer dying for my sins. He did surely die in a target rich environment.
former sandcastler:
And he deserved it.
(Sorry about the political comment. Wait. No, I’m not.)