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”
So did Errol Flynn. Two for one you might say. Nothing for over three hours? Glued to the tube are we?
No idiot box for me. We finally had a clear night with above freezing temperatures, so I took my little telescope out and viewed the moon as I never have before.
Poet: Someone who is determined to make you as tortured and unhappy as he is, but doing it with beautiful words.
Good morning Villagers…..
Windows open, rain and thunderstorms have passed and the chick-a-dees are chirping.
Smigz…to paraphrase a quote from a movie with Captain Kilgore…I love the smell of “fresh dirt” in the morning…quick, name that movie 🙂
Jean, I U-tubed some intersections yesterday, a few of them actually made me air sick from the aerial view…no thank you. The interstate leaving Louisville into Indiana where three interstates merge alone scare me…it’s put the peddle to the metal if you want to get back home in Indiana…there’s a song there somewhere 🙂
Rick, no need to apologize to me….I feel the same way. Went through the slideshow twice, Native Americans were treated horribly. There is some ancestral Native American on my Dad’s side of the family….can’t recall what nation, wonder if my sister knows. She’s the genealogy enthusiast.
Emb, thank you for your post….I recall watching on NatGeo once where a snowy owl stealthily penetrate the snow and pulled out a mouse…no evidence of the snow being disturbed, just by sound he knew where that mouse was….awesome.
Good morning Old Bear…was wondering when you’d drop in. If I took an afternoon nap, I’d never sleep at night…I’m lucky to get at least four to five hours at night.
I was reading up on chocolate milk/with the caffeine and it’s effect on the elderly….studies have shown that dark chocolate helps with memory….hhmmm. Going on a mission soon, look out Cadburry Bunny….if it is available in dark chocolate. I’ve had the pleasure of enjoying the taste of German dark chocolate….yummy
Jackie, Ian has proven to be quite the yard worker from weed killing, mowing and tree trimming….I would gladly contract him out to you….lol 🙂
Still no Jeep, maybe today. Jeep has KY plates and BIL said something about a notary…oh, well, I’ve been w/o a vehicle since tax day of last year, so what’s a couple of more days.
Thanks domaucon for your well wishes….and God bless America.
…coffee’s cold, needs warmed up
later…..
Haven’t read any early am posts.
http://thatispriceless.blogspot.com/
Would think you could slay them in FL w/o a permit, but who knows re the Athenian FWS?
Peace,
GR 😉 what would you give to be in this audience?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnlwxS-36AU
… better yet, to HAVE been in that audience?????
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzKd0aiaK4c
Ghost:
No, you didn’t have to be there. Funny as is!
Debbe: Speaking of silence, the forward edges of owls’ flight feathers lack barbs, softening them. Thus, they make no noise cutting the air during rapid flight. Natural selection.
Peace,
today’s grins……..
http://cheezburger.com/1858309/20-pawsitively-hilarious-cat-memes-that-you-have-to-see
Emb, I was wrong about the species….it was a grey owl….found the NatGeo video…..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4OH6gMN6vY
Yep, Jerry, glued to the Tube I was. PBS’s American Experience began its broadcasts on World War I yesterday evening.
Debbe, was that “Good Morning, Vietnam?”
Ghost, can you imagine all the things Twain said that neither he nor anyone else wrote down?!?!? First thing we do after we build the time travel machine is to go back and follow him around with a hidden microphone. Hope you’re feeling better.
Apocalypse Now. “…smells like victory!”
Guess I’ve cleared cookies. I’m the anonymous Apocalypse.
So behind but still in bed. Finally got my pain meds filled but not before knees and joints exploded.
Not feeling charitable to the doctor right now. I take a med combo that prevents the inflammation not that stops pain later.
David, you are correct!!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jts9suWIDlU
Smigz, Robert Duvall played the role of Capt. Kilgore in “Apocalypse Now”…love Robert Duvall, Jerry does too. I don’t think there is a movie of his I did not like…and he’s made many…my favorite, “Lonesome Dove”.
Lunchtime 🙂
Something wrong? No posts since 1108? There is at least one young in the MT g.h. owl nest, plus a vole[?] brought in by Dad. As I understand it, Mom does all the incubating and maybe brooding, too.
http://explore.org/live-cams/player/great-horned-owl-cam
Peace,
Now is an unfortunate time to be using the word apocalypse.
Jimmy:
“You can look it up.”
Neat allusion to James Thurber.
PM random thought:
I never have been much of a consumerist.
I dislike the accumulation of things.
I like to call myself a minimalistic Spartan.
I am something of a pack rat. I confine myself to specific things. I love books and have accumulated a lot of them. I just can’t imagine using an electronic device to read I need a real book.
Laura:
I am also a voracious reader and have been since I was four. However, I now have great difficulty reading paper print because my eyes have rapidly developing cataracts. Considering the nature of my second career, this is an inconvenience.
So, almost everything that I read now is on a high-end monitor. Being able to adjust the screen’s brightness and the size and choice of the font has been a blessing.
Dr. S. removed my cataracts some years ago, so I can now drive safely [but unwillingly] at night. Before that, all street, traffic, and neon lights halated so badly that I’d not have seen a pedestrian in the road.
Also, before that, I was seriously near-sighted, 20/400 courtesy rating. So was Elaine. Our kind of myopia results from a simple, one-locus recessive gene so, predictably, all 3 ‘kids’ [now 55, 59, and 62] are seriously near-sighted. But, with the plastic insert replacements, my fixed focus is now several feet away. Still need glasses: astigmatism and such. But old habits die hard. Before, if I needed a real close look at something, I took off my trifocals and held the object a few inches away. In effect, my myopic eyes were low-power magnifiers. Still tend to do that, but catch myself.
There are lots worse handicaps than myopia.
Peace,
There was way too much “day” in “today”.
Debbe 😉 I was expecting a Jeep report by now,hon.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AZNV9I1nBF4/UB6SvKtIR6I/AAAAAAAAAWY/fk8_oWh9JCI/s1600/midvale+school+for+the+gifted.jpg
One of my favorites from his work. And a great illustration of why some people have constant trouble in life. Read the instructions!
It is an unfortunate time, Jerry. As a former nuclear, biological, & chemical defense officer for Uncle Sam’s Army, I find the use of chemical weapons in Syria troubling. For equal time, I find the response by the US somewhat troubling as well.
Maybe someday we will finally make those plowshares.
https://youtu.be/4EIzKAGwJ-0