A Greek bearing delicious gifts, a star-studded past
Story by Scottie Vickery Submitted photos
When it comes to cooking, Polly Warren has trained with the best. As a young girl growing up in Greece, she learned the intricacies of meals and pastries from her mother and grandmother. After marrying an American and moving to Georgia as a young bride, she mastered Southern dishes in her mother-in-law’s kitchen.
The result is something she calls American Greek cooking – a delicious blend of both countries born from two families full of tradition and love. “I love the cooking,” she said, her Greek accent still heavy. “I love to learn and do new things. If I see something I like, I make it, add to it, and make the recipe my own.”
As a result, she’s bridged the divide between two cultures by introducing her favorite Greek dishes to her American family and friends and taking some Southern favorites home to her family. “I made them chili,” she said, laughing at the memory of the first American dish she shared with her loved ones in Greece. “They loved it. They thought it was great.”
A popular caterer in St. Clair County, Polly works out of the kitchen of the Pell City KFC, which her family has owned for nearly five decades. In addition to weekly meetings of the Rotary Club of Pell City, she caters everything from tailgate parties and luncheons to teas, rehearsal dinners and weddings. “Whatever anybody wants, I can cook it,” she said.
Growing up Greek
Born Polyltime Stavridis, the daughter of Dimitri and Kostantina, Polly grew up in Athens, Greece, with her brother, Costas, and her sister, Vaso. Whenever she thinks of her childhood, the first thing that comes to mind is the family kitchen. “I can still close my eyes and see myself there,” said Polly, now 72. “We’d always be in the kitchen. Always the girls served the men.” The main meal was served at 2 p.m., and after an afternoon siesta, the men would return to work. “Then they would come back, and we would eat leftovers,” she said.
Even as young girls, Polly and Vaso worked alongside their mother and grandmother, who lived with them. “We started when we were young, 5 or 6,” she said. ‘“They always gave us a little dough so we could participate. We would clean the potatoes, help with the dough, make cookies. When we were 10, 11 or 12, we would start participating completely.”
Family favorites included stifado, a Greek beef stew; spanakopita, a spinach pie; bifteki, which Polly describes as a stuffed hamburger; and keftedes, or Greek meatballs. “My mother used to make a big pan and leave it on the stove, and we’d eat it like popcorn,” she said.
There were plenty of pastries, too. Melomakarona, or honey cookies, were a staple, as well as tea cakes and baklava. Polly remembers her grandmother rolling out big sheets of homemade phyllo dough that was used for pastries and pie crusts. “Back in those days we made it homemade,” she said. “It took two people.”
Cooking for a crowd proved to be a challenge. “Back then, we had a little bitty oven, and our oven couldn’t bake all those cookies and big dishes like stuffed peppers and tomatoes,” Warren said. They took their dishes and pastries to a nearby baker, who cooked it for them in his industrial oven. “You tell him you want it ready for the family at 2, you give him $1 or $2, you pick your food up and carry it home,” she said.
A good student, Warren skipped the sixth-grade and graduated from high school at 16. “I started modeling and playing parts in movies,” she said, adding that her uncle was a producer. “Somebody didn’t show up one day, and he calls me and said, ‘Polly, do you want to do this?’ It was a commercial for shoes.”
After that, she had a “little part in a movie here, a little part there,” including a role as a party guest in the 1965 Italian movie, The Three Faces of a Woman. The movie starred Princess Soraya Esfandiary Bakhtiari, the ex-wife of an Iranian shah, and Richard Harris, who later played Albus Dumbledore in the Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.
Young Polly’s acting and modeling career didn’t last long because she soon met her future husband – Wayne Warren, an American serviceman from Georgia who was stationed in Greece. “I have good memories of it, and I did it until I met Mr. Warren,” she said. “Mr. Warren, he says ‘no.’ He didn’t like all those guys hanging around.”
The two met when Polly’s friend, who was engaged to an American buddy of Wayne’s, invited her to a party. She was hesitant to go because she didn’t know what to tell her family. “Back in those days, you didn’t go off to a party,” she said. “I did a little white lying and said we were going to the movies.”
The two really did go to the movies a few weeks later, after Wayne had gotten permission from Polly’s father. “A commercial came on the big screen, and there I am big as life,” she said with a laugh. “I’m hiding under the seat, and he couldn’t believe it. It was a commercial for glassware for a wedding.”
After the two married, Polly left her beloved Greece in 1967 to move to the U.S. with Wayne. After a quick stint in Texas, they headed to Columbus, Ga., Wayne’s hometown. He was still in the Air Force, so Polly lived with his mother, Irene Warren, in her beautiful old house with a big wraparound porch. “It was very, very nice,” Polly said. “My mother-in-law, she loved me to death.”
Southern influences
Although she missed her family, cooking with Irene helped cure some of the homesickness. “We cooked together in this big kitchen, and you felt like it was home,” Polly said. “I learned how to do squash casserole, make creamed corn and snap peas.”
The dishes were different from anything she’d had before, but Polly appreciated good food when she tasted it. “Mac and cheese, I never ate it in my life, but once I tasted it, it was good. I learned to eat pork chops, and I learned to eat ribs and turnip greens. I loved it.”
As a new bride, she learned to fix some of her husband’s favorites, which quickly became hers as well. “I love a good steak and baked potato,” she said. “And vegetables with cornbread. I could sit and eat the whole skillet.”
Another Southern staple, fried chicken, soon became a big part of her life. After Wayne retired from the Air Force in 1970, they moved to Selma, where he worked with a dear friend who owned KFC franchises. He decided he wanted to open one himself. Although “we only had baked chicken in Greece, we never fried it,” Polly was on board.
Wayne started scouting locations, and while driving through central Alabama one day, he happened to stop at a gas station in St. Clair County. “An 18-wheeler driver told him to look at Pell City,” she said. “That’s what he did, and that’s where we are.”
Polly Warren plating her famous baklava.
While raising their three sons – Michael, Jimmy and David – the Warrens spent lots of time at various ballfields and soon became fixtures in the community. Polly got her catering start while working in the concession stands, where she cooked plenty of hot dogs and hamburgers. That led to dishes for athletic banquets and other events, and things took off from there.
“Before you know it, they asked, ‘Do you mind doing a tea,’ so you do a tea. Then they said do, ‘Do you mind doing a wedding,’ so you do a wedding. I started with 100 people, and I have been up to 600. That’s how it all got started,” she said.
Although Wayne passed away 10 years ago, Polly still loves cooking for her family and especially enjoys time in the kitchen with her four grandchildren. She’s happy to share recipes, although at times that proves a little difficult. “I never measure anything,” she said. “I put a little bit of this, a little bit of that. So, when they ask, I have to figure it out and write it.”
Alabama has been home for most of Polly’s life, but she still gets homesick for Greece on occasion. Yearly trips to Athens help, and she loves to get back in the kitchen with her mother, now 90, and her sister while she’s there. She makes sure to bring back her favorite fresh spices. “It grows wild over there,” she said. “You see rosemary, you see basil. I bring all that back. The American spices, they do not taste the same.”
Whether it’s the spices or the love she puts in each dish, Polly’s cooking is always a hit. “It’s good therapy,” she said. “I get in the kitchen and get busy cooking, and I never leave. I make a lot, and I give it away to neighbors and family and friends. I love it when people eat it and say how good it is. No one has complained yet.”
Stores here have everything you need this holiday season
Story by Jackie Walburn Submitted photos
When it comes to unique gifts and personal service, holiday shoppers win every time by shopping locally, say St. Clair merchants who offer suggestions for most-wanted gifts for 2020.
From clothes and statement jewelry to pets and guitars to gift cards and locally made candles and soaps, around-the-corner and down-the-street merchants recommend distinctive gifts and exceptional service available at local shops.
At Mum & Me Mercantile on Parkway Drive in downtown Leeds, owner Neva Reardon recommends shopping locally and buying locally and points to products made by local artists, including pottery, candles and jewelry.
A store specializing in handmade items and artworks from Alabama and across the South, Mum & Me carries pottery from local potter Susan Moore, handmade candles from Red Beard Redolence of Leeds, soaps and candles from Community Natural in Shelby County, candles and melts from Cahaba Handmade in Leeds.
Other regionally made items at Mum & Me include Zkano organic cotton socks from Little River Sock Company in Fort Payne; Bronnie’s Brittle, a peanut brittle made in Birmingham; lotions, bath and body items from K and C Bath Co. in Birmingham; and hand-stenciled kitchen towels made by Becky Denny of Digs Design in Homewood.
Gift ideas abound at Monkey Bizness in downtown Pell City, but owner Michelle Tumlin recommends that shoppers look at the shop’s new reading glasses with blue-light filters, perfect for all ages and less than $25, plus the store’s exclusive hand-poured candles. With fragrances, flavors and names developed in partnership with a candle maker in Franklin, Tenn., the handmade candles are popular and unique to the store. Monkey Bizness candles’ best-selling fragrances are Pell City Christmas and Panther Pride, named for the Pell City Panthers.
Specializing in women’s and children’s clothing, Monkey Bizness has added newborn clothes to its line of clothes for children, with boy sizes from newborn to 5, and, for girls, from newborn to toddler to children, tweens, misses and plus sizes, Tumlin says. “If you’re a girl, I can dress you.”
At Ron Partain’s World of Music in downtown Pell City, long-time owner and musician Ron Partain sees music as a holiday gift that keeps giving. Open for 42 years, Ron Partain’s World of Music specializes in musical instruments, including guitars, mandolins, banjos, violins and pianos and all essentials to go with them.
“Our featured items would be guitars for all ages, acoustic and electric, and gift certificates for lessons to go with a guitar,” Partain says, noting his favorite part of his job is “watching people’s eyes dance because they made music.”
Pointing to the popularity of online buying, even for musical instruments, Partain says folks looking for music instruments or accessories should check this local store first. “Truth is, we sell at internet prices, but our joy is helping people to love music.” And if you can find it online, they can get it for you in the store.
Jewelry is always a go-to gift at Griffins Jewelers, and Stephanie Smith, manager at the Pell City shop, points to Le Vian jewelry as tops for 2020 holidays. Known for original designs using their trademarked Chocolate Diamonds and colored gem stones, Le Vian’s styles in earrings, necklaces and rings are trendy and stylish with a high-quality standard. “These are truly statement pieces,” Smith says. Griffins is a local distributor of Le Vian, an internationally renowned family-owned jeweler with a history dating back centuries. They offer a wide variety of Le Vian pieces priced from about $800 up.
Another Griffins gift recommendation revolves around solar-powered globes that rotate inside a clear sphere, a gift that’s calming and scientific at the same time, priced at $170 and up. Gift wrapping is free with purchase at Griffins Jewelers, which is celebrating its 70th year in business in 2020.
Known for its residential and commercial mailboxes marketed statewide and nationally, Alabama Mailbox Company in Ashville is also growing as St. Clair County’s headquarters for exotic animals and pets, says Kaitlyn Martin of Alabama Mailbox.
They have bearded dragons, hedgehogs, geckos, skinks and tortoises and all the items needed to care for and feed the unusual pets. “These are very unique gifts, and we have all the supplies, food, cages and bedding,” Martin says. The company’s pet offerings are expanding to include house pets, dogs and cats, organic pet food and treats. They also carry top line food and water dishes, leashes and diet supplements.
Visiting the store on Turkey Hollow Lane in Ashville, shoppers can see the pets and buy in-stock mailboxes, or they can custom order the best in mailboxes, light posts, signs and garden accessories, which come with experienced customer service.
Warren Family Garden Center and Nursery on Old Cedar Grove Road in Leeds gets ready for Christmas season early with fresh poinsettias and other Christmas plants, including lemon cypress, Christmas cactus and bulbs, says manager Michelle Warren, one of the family owners of the full-service garden center.
Gift items she recommends include wind chimes, pottery, house plants, floral decorations and garden art. Distinctive Christmas decorations are available too, along with fresh evergreen wreaths and garland and Christmas trees which begin arriving before Thanksgiving.
At Merle Norman in downtown Pell City, expect skin-care products and splashes of color as top gifts, says Joanna Darden, salesperson at the shop on Cogswell Avenue.
All the skin care lines at the nationally-known cosmetics shop are great gifts, she says, recommending a holiday makeup item called Starry Eyes Liquid Foil, one of Merle Norman’s holiday gift items. “It’s eye shadow and mascara in copper and silvery colors that are glittery but not too much. The look is eye-popping and perfect for the holidays,” Darden says. Merle Norman originally introduced the Liquid Foil set for spring, and it was such a hit that it’s been modified for winter and Christmas and New Year’s season.
At Hattie Lee’s Boutique on Martin Street in Pell City, owner Jo Ann Bain recommends casual clothing and loungewear as top gift choices. “Anything casual is great. Folks are staying home, working from home and doing virtual everything,” she says.
“Loungewear is really big,” she says, noting they are not basic sweatsuits, but comfortable, cute clothing, with fashion themes that include animal prints and creative camo prints. Shoppers and gift buyers are looking for “something they can get up and put on to work at home and still look good when you need to get out.”
Hattie Lee’s is also selling fashion-forward masks – in colors and designs to match outfits or mood. “Everyone has to have them,” Bain says about mask face coverings needed during the ongoing pandemic, “so they might as well be cute.”
At Uptown Girl, also known as UG Clothing, in downtown Pell City, the variety is such that owner Virginia Seales says a UG Gift Card makes the perfect gift.
“It’s loadable and reloadable,” and with new items coming in daily, a gift card takes the guessing out of gift buying. UG’s Facebook Live Shows, held on Mondays and Thursdays via the store’s Facebook page, are another way the shop reaches customers and makes shopping easier, Seales says. Held at 7 p.m. two nights a week, the live shows feature the latest fashions and gift ideas.
Begun during the initial pandemic shutdown in the Spring of 2020 as outreach to customers, the Live Show videos continue as holiday purchasing begins. Participants can purchase via the Live Shows and pick up the items or have them shipped. The first five Facebook users who respond to the Live Show announcement with a “Shop UG” comment win $10 gift cards.
One of St. Clair’s oldest churches is still home to many
Story by Joe Whitten Submitted photos
On Aug. 16, 2020, Macedonia Baptist Church, No. 2, Ragland, celebrated 180 years of faithful spiritual service in St. Clair County. The anniversary celebration occurred on a modest scale because of the current COVID-19 pandemic. The congregation went for regular worship and afterward enjoyed a lunch in the fellowship hall.
The county is home to several churches organized in the early years of both St. Clair County and Alabama.Some churches have surviving records documenting the church’s beginnings, while others have scant information. Over the years, many original minute books met destruction through a house fire where the minutes were stored.
Researchers come face to face with this in researching Macedonia Baptist, No. 2. The official organization date of 1840 is recorded in St. Clair County Baptist Associational meetings, but the year that families began to meet to worship together in the area of Macedonia Mountain lies in the long shadows of two centuries. Furthermore, undocumented published accounts deepen the shadows of the past rather than giving light to them.
In the Daughters of the American Revolution book, Some Early Alabama Churches (Established before 1870) Commemorating the Bicentennial of the United States of America, published in 1973, authors wrote this about Macedonia Baptist: “This church is said to be the oldest church in St. Clair County, and it is thought that it was organized in 1812. It is located in the mountains near Ragland. Records go back to 1840.” However, the authors, Mable Ponder Wilson, Dorothy Youngblood Woodyerd and Rosa Lee Busby, give no documentation for stating this. This is a great frustration to the church and any historian, for someone gave them that information. One can hope that in some old trunk or chest, a forgotten diary or family Bible will come to light to prove the 1812 date.
The Minutes of the St. Clair County Baptist Association for 1932, 1936 and 1942 record 1840 as the official organizational date. The fact is that, as settlers formed communities, families met in homes to worship together. At some point, a circuit-riding minister would come to preach once a month. A desire for a church name and building would burn in the hearts of the group who would petition ministers in the county to help them organize a church. Probably believers worshipped together long before organizing and naming the church Macedonia. The Grizzell and Johnson families are known early members of the church.
The person who gave the 1812 date to DAR also gave a description of the first Macedonia church building. The log structure had no widows. “On the interior of the structure was cube of rocks about three feet long, three feet high, and three feet wide, with a rock shaft going out the side of the building. This was for light when it was necessary to meet a night. Pine knots were burned, giving light, and the smoke went out the shaft. A lean-to that joined onto the building accommodated the slaves.” According to oral history, the first church sat where today stands the pavilion protecting the long “dinner on the ground” tables.
Lela Alverson Grizzell told great-granddaughter Sheila McKinney that a storm destroyed the log structure, but she didn’t give a date for the storm. In a St. Clair News-Aegis article of Oct. 15, 1992, Elise Argo wrote, “The log building was replaced in the early 1900s.” The article indicates Ms. Argo got that date from Brother Archie Maddox, pastor at that time. An up-to-date, wood-frame church replaced the log building, which served the congregation until the present brick structure replaced it in 1948.
In 1956, the church started a building fund to add classrooms. This came to fulfillment in 1965 when the men of the church added two restrooms, a pastor’s study and eight classrooms. In 1985, the men added the fellowship hall with kitchen and dining areas.
The lovely painting gracing the baptistry was done in 1998 by Ken Maddox in loving memory of his mother, Mary Maddox, wife of Brother Archie Maddox.
Baptistry painting by Ken Maddox in memory of Mary Maddox, his mother
The original log building served as both church and school according to local family accounts. Shelia McKinney recounted what her great-grandmother, Lela Alverson Grizzell, told of attending the log school.
“The Alverson family settled these hills and valleys, and Lela’s brothers and sisters attended school here,” Shelia recalled. “Lela and her older brothers and sisters walked to school from Macedonia Mountain where they lived. A pond ran over the road, and she told of ice skating on the pond.
“The school had a potbelly stove, and when it rained, they took off their boots and lined them around the stove to dry. They’d wrap their feet in their coats until their feet got warm. Lela said the log church-school blew away in a storm.”
Surviving church minutes of Aug. 20, 1922, show Macedonia as a member of the Coosa Valley Baptist Association, and Rev. Joe Mitchell, pastor, appointing Russell Arnold, Calvin Wood, Henry Johnson, William G. Wilder and J. H. Trammell as messengers to the 1922 meeting. Baptist churches’ messengers represent local congregations and have voting privileges in associational business meetings.
The St. Clair County Baptist Association minutes of the 1929 annual meeting at Broken Arrow Baptist Church, Sept. 14-15, records that “Macedonia No. 2 was received, and the Moderator gave the messengers the right hand of fellowship.” The messengers were M.C. Sagers, H. Johnson, J.S. Bunt and Rosa Jane Bice. Brother Clifford Streety of Pell City was Macedonia’s pastor in 1929.
Macedonia, Ragland, was designated No. 2, and Macedonia, Margaret, No. 1, because the Margaret church had been a member of the association since 1915.
Shelia McKinney, church clerk, has collected church memorabilia and history, some of which is tattered fragments of minutes from the 19th and early 20th centuries. As with many old records on paper, deterioration has taken its toll, but those tattered remains are treasures.
Fragments of old minutes record the Church Covenant and Order of Decorum. As with most early Baptist churches, Macedonia practiced church discipline. The purpose was to help members and restore them to fellowship. Common infractions found in most old church minutes show that drinking, swearing and dancing were causes of “being brought before the church” for discipline and restoration.
The cemetery adjacent to the church is one of the older ones in St. Clair County, and as with all old graveyards, some of the oldest graves are marked by large rocks or crosses. The oldest known grave is that of John Chambliss, May 23, 1826 – Jan. 23, 1881. The oldest person buried there is Chesley Phillips, 117 years old, Aug 7, 1810 – Oct. 25, 1927. According to 1890 church minutes, Macedonia began observing Memorial Day at the cemetery “… on Saturday before the 3rd Sunday in May.” This continues today.
Macedonia’s records show that the Singing Convention often met at the church. Open doors and windows of the church allowed those outside to enjoy the singing going on inside. Newspapers usually announced these events, as shown in this Aug. 12, 1954, St. Clair News-Aegis invitation.
“All-Day Singing, Food Galore, To Be At Macedonia Aug. 15. The Annual all-day singing with dinner on the grounds at noon will be held at Macedonia Baptist Church No. 2 Sunday, August 15. Special singers for the annual event will be Mack Wright and the Victory Quartet, in addition to several others. You are cordially invited to this great day of fellowship,” it reads.
Vacation Bible School week has been another annual event for the church. During the week, children are taught Bible stories and work on crafts or art that correspond with the theme of the week. Several years ago, one of the teachers started the Bible School Quilt, with good results, as shown in the photographs.
Rev. Edwin Talley, pastor of Ragland First Baptist and a former member of Macedonia, said, “I was a member of Macedonia in the early 1980s. It was there that I accepted my calling into the ministry, and there I preached my first sermon. I remained an active member there until I was called to pastor Oak Grove No. 2 in 1986. Macedonia ordained me at the request of Oak Grove. I will always consider Macedonia my home.”
McKinney echoes Talley’s sentiments. When asked for a comment and memory, she replied, “All I can say is, ‘It’s home.’ This was the first church I ever attended. I accepted Jesus in the alter to the right of the pulpit, and I was baptized here. My daughters were saved and baptized here.
“My great-great-grandfather helped organize this church and pastored it. My great-grandparents met and married here. My aunt, Louise Grizzell Sterling, was the song leader for many years, my uncle was a deacon, and my granny taught Sunday school. Following in her footsteps, I also teach Sunday school. Seven generations of my family have attended this church and worked for God here.
“This church – not just the building – the people are my family, and I wouldn’t want to be in any other church – unless God told me to go. I pray that as long as God tarries Jesus’ coming again that my family and I will be here serving God and community to the best of our ability.
“My favorite childhood memory of Macedonia Baptist is learning to recite all 66 books of the Bible in order as they are in the Bible. I was 12 years old, and my granny, Marcene Grizzell, was my Sunday school teacher. Our class had to recite the 66 books in front of the church on a Sunday morning. When we accomplished this, the church gave us our own Bible. I still have mine. My most cherished memory now is that I saw my grandbaby, Katelyn Serenity Byers, dedicated in this church. She is the seventh generation Grizzell descendant attending here.
“I will be buried in the graveyard beside the church with my beloved family members that have gone on before me.”
Brother Bryan Robinson has pastored Macedonia Baptist since 2016. He said, “Macedonia, Ragland, is truly a church that God has ordained to be the church today where we see people saved and baptized even during a COVID-19. This church has seen many wars, the Great Depression and many United States presidents. Over the years, Macedonia’s members have endured many trials and have been victorious through it all. It makes me humble, thankful and truly blessed that God would allow me to help His church go a little further till He comes again. Macedonia members are the salt of the earth. They are a loving, caring and praying people who still use the altar every time the church doors open. I thank God for this church, my church. My wife Sandy and I call it home.”
Each of these referred to Macedonia as Home. What they express connects perfectly with modern Christian author Philip Yancey’s words, “I go to church as an expression of my need for God and for God’s family.” Such is Macedonia Baptist Church, Ragland, a family of believers who feel at Home in church.
Story by Elaine Hobson Miller Photos by Graham Hadley
Some folks get their kicks riding race cars at top speed around an oval track. Others get a rush from parachuting out of airplanes, paragliding off high mountain peaks, or surviving an eight-second ride on a bull so mean he’d just as soon kill you as look at you.
Several St. Clair County men know another type of thrill, one that’s difficult for them to describe. It comes from taking down an elephant that he has tracked for miles across a South African plain, a lion that just roared from a brush-pile 12 feet away or an Alaskan brown bear that was about to invite him to dinner … as the entrée.
Between them, Rob Smith, Gordon Palmgren and Joe Wheeler have shot hundreds of birds and animals, large and small, from grouse to sheep and elephants. Each will tell you that it’s not the kill that provides the thrill. It’s the sighting and tracking of these animals that give these guys that rush of adrenalin, a rush so powerful they’re willing to spend thousands of dollars to experience it over and over again. For them, pulling the trigger is actually anti-climactic.
“After you shoot, it’s all over,” says Smith. “There’s a tinge of sadness because you’ve taken this magnificent animal’s life.”
All three men have been hunting most of their lives. Two of them were taught by a female member of their family. Smith, for example, went on his first hunt with his grandmother when he was 10 years old. “She was one of the last of the old pioneer women,” he says. “She could do anything.” They hunted rabbits and squirrels together around Tallahassee, Fla., where he grew up. They usually took their prey home and ate it. “Man has always hunted,” he says. “It’s part of our basic instinct. As you get older, you start hunting deer here in the South. I progressed.”
Rob Smith shows off a photo of a brown bear hunt in front of the animal.
Smith, who started Advance Machinery in 1985 and retired 20 years ago, has been hunting big game for more than 30 years. His first international hunt was in Mongolia in 1990, and netted him an ibex, a type of wild mountain goat distinguished by the male’s large, recurved horns, and a six-point elk. Their cape mounts (head and shoulders) hang on one side of his den fireplace, while a 22-point red stag from New Zealand hangs on the other side.“You only count one side of the head for the points on an elk,” he says. “You count both sides for a red stag.”
Throughout the house are mounts of many of the animals Smith has taken. Above the fireplace is the skull of a moose, an animal whose size is measured by the distance between the widest points of its “palms,” the two wide, flat antlers. This one measures 55 inches. Mule deer from Wyoming and Montana flank the doorway into his kitchen. But the dominant animal in the den is the nine-foot-tall brown bear from Alaska in the corner. “He was standing like that when I shot him, looking at a herd of caribou,” Smith recalls. “He didn’t know what hit him.” He has the creature’s skull, with worn teeth indicating he was about 28 years old. “His teeth were deteriorating, so he would not have lived through another winter,” Smith says.
Hunting has taken him all over the North American continent and around the world. He has shot Arctic caribou on Victoria Island, which is above the 60th parallel and as far north as people actually live. “It was 20 below zero there, dangerously cold,” he says of that trip. He has taken white-tailed deer in Alabama, Dall sheep, bears and mountain goats in Alaska, Russian wild boar in South Carolina, tahr (related to goats and sheep), sika deer and chamois (a species of goat-antelope) in New Zealand.
“You’ve got to be physically fit to track the mountain animals,” says Smith, who is 69. “I was much younger, and my knees were in better shape when I killed those. You might climb 5,000-6,000 feet up a mountain. You’re carrying a backpack and a rifle. I have weights and an exercise machine in my basement, and I work out almost every day. But I don’t climb mountains anymore.”
He considers the elephant one of the most physically demanding beasts to hunt. “You have to walk 10-12 miles a day for two to three weeks, sometimes longer,” he says. “You may track a herd for two or three days, catch up and find no bulls big enough to take. Then you start all over again.”
His trophy room contains several photos of game that were too big to mount, like the Indian buffalo from Argentina and the water buffalo he took in Australia. In 1993, the state of Montana sent him a plaque for shooting the second largest antelope killed there at that time. There’s a musk ox fur stretched over the pool table, and 12 mounts hang on the walls. “You mount them to honor the animal, to remember them,” he says. Smith uses Stone Taxidermy of Leeds for most of his mounts.
He has hunted Africa and Australia for the last 12 years, because he likes the challenge of tracking dangerous game (buffalo, elephant, lion, hippopotamus, crocodile and leopard). “The animal has as good a chance to take you out as you have to get him,” he says. His primary prey now are the elephant and the cape buffalo. He has a mount of the latter over the doorway from his foyer to his trophy room. “The rhinoceros is now on the endangered species list due to poaching, so we can’t hunt them,” he says. “Poachers kill them for the horns, sell them to the Asians, who grind them up and use them as an aphrodisiac.”
Poachers hunt in secret and leave the carcasses, but legitimate hunters donate the meat to local villagers, usually through the outfitters who organize the hunts. “When do-gooders start hollering, ‘Why would you shoot a magnificent animal like the elephant,’ I say it’s no different than shooting a cow,” Smith explains. “That elephant will feed a whole village for weeks or months.” He says it’s against the law for villagers to shoot the elephants because the government makes money off the trophy fees. “There’s not an animal in this house that wasn’t eaten, except for the bear. Brown bears are inedible.”
Even in Alaska, you can’t just leave the meat where you drop the animal. In some cases, Smith has had it processed and shipped home from Alaska, but usually he packs it out. “It took me four days to backpack all the meat out (of camp) when I took that big moose that’s hanging over the fireplace,” he says. “You can’t drive a truck up to get it. The outfitter donated it to the indigenous people and to charities.”
Normally Smith does two or three international hunts a year. Much of the money spent on hunts in the U.S. and abroad goes into animal conservation. “Even in this country, the biggest part of conservation money comes from hunters’ fees,” he says. “Besides, nature has to have checks and balances. Most animals get diseases from interbreeding. If they have no natural predators, they starve.”
Unlike Smith, Gordon Palmgren won’t shoot an elephant, unless it’s a rogue that’s running amuck through villages and fields. “I don’t want to disrupt their family unit,” he says. “They are special.” His wife, Sharla, does not want him to shoot a giraffe. Those are about the only two big-game animals not on display at his office.
In fact, the conference room at Gordon Palmgren Inc., which lays fiber-optic cables, looks like a natural-history museum. Murals on the back and front walls depict an African plain and the face of a rugged mountain, respectively. Painted by Springville’s Joy Varnell (see the October/November 2019 issue of Discover), they form backdrops that make the full-body animals appear to be in their natural habitats. Elephants and a giraffe are painted into the African mural, along with Palmgren’s two sons, depicted as youngsters peeking from behind a tree.
“I took Dane, who is now 30, to Africa when he was younger,” says Palmgren. “He shot a (large species of antelope) when he was 10. Travis, 35, is an artist who has never hunted, but he’ll come up here and draw pictures of the animals.”
Other animals in front of that mural include several types of antelopes, such as a sable, along with two steenboks, two duikers and a musk ox. There’s also a zebra, a lion and lioness, an impala, wart hogs and forest hogs, a bush buck (another type of antelope), a pair of monkeys, some baboons and a 14-foot-long crocodile. An Arizona javelina (type of wild boar) is placed incongruously amid all those African animals, but he doesn’t seem to object. The straw-grass at the base of many mounts has been chewed short by Sylvester, the office’s live feline mascot.
On another African wall are more full-body monkeys and the cape mounts of a rhinoceros, cape buffalo and another sable antelope. “The Safari Club International has a system of scoring your kills by length of their horns,” Palmgren says. “There are three levels: bronze, silver, gold. That sable is the only animal I’ve shot that’s in a (record) book. For a year it was No. 7 in the world.”
A lot of hunters won’t shoot an animal if it’s not a huge, gold-medal trophy, but Palmgren doesn’t hunt to get into record books. “I do it for the fun, the challenge, to see different places,” he says. “I’ve seen a lot of the world.”
On the other two walls hang dozens of cape mounts, such as spiral-horned kudu, a red hartebeest (African antelope), a gemsbok (another type of South African antelope), a moose from British Columbia, several elk out of Colorado, a bison from New Mexico, a water buffalo from Venezuela, a caribou from Greenland, a mountain goat from British Columbia, a tahr and a chamois from New Zealand. Still another wall has full-mounted mountain goats, a tahr and a chamois standing on ledges that jut out from the wall.
His mounts spill over into his office and lobby, too, including a full-body mount of an aoudad (Barbary sheep) shot in Texas and a nyala (spiral-horned antelope of southern Africa). The latter stands in a corner under a pencil drawing of a tiger done by Travis. A zebra skin is displayed on another wall. In his office stands an eight-foot-tall blonde brown bear. Who knew that brown bears are a species that come in various colors? Or that the grizzly is a subspecies of the brown bear? “Grizzlies are inland, whereas brown bears are coastal,” Palmgren points out.
He uses Capps Taxidermy in Demopolis to preserve his trophies. “Mounting them in foreign countries, you don’t know the quality, he says. “It’s not as good as here. Shipping home life-size animals is especially high, so the hide and horns are all you take home to the taxidermist. Generally, you only mount the cape, which is from front shoulder forward. To me, though, with certain animals, you miss so much with just the cape.”
Like Rob Smith, Palmgren, 69, started hunting as a child. His mother gave him a .410 shotgun when he was 12. “We used to hunt squirrel and other small game together,” he says. A big-game hunter for 25 years, he bought his first trip to Africa at a Safari Club International convention in Las Vegas in 1996. He has been to Africa five more times since then. “It’s like potato chips, you can’t do just one,” he says. “It’s such a thrill. It’s the chase and the challenge. You will go back.” He hasn’t been there this year but has spent his spare time developing a piece of hunting property he bought in St. Clair County.
In African countries, governments there require that you have a local guide, called a professional hunter there. Hunters go out in groups that include trackers and skinners. “The 10-day rate varies according to exclusivity of the animal and his dangerousness,” Palmgren says. “It can be $1,500 per day to $3,000-$4,000 for more dangerous animals, such as lions and elephants. Every animal has a trophy fee attached, too. Supply and demand determine those. There are also government fees.”
Although hippopotamuses kill more people than lions in African countries, tracking a lion still is a dangerous proposition. Palmgren found that out the hard way on the trail of a lioness in South Africa. “I had spotted her, then she got away, and I was using binoculars to spot her again,” he recalls. “I walked by a room-sized brush pile, heard growling, then a roar from 12 feet away. She was in that brush pile. I shot her, but I also found out how I would react to a dangerous situation. I didn’t think I would ever quit shaking.”
Joe Wheeler and the brown bear that almost got him.
Joe Wheeler had a similar experience with a blonde brown bear, but it was much more personal than Palmgren’s. The bear was trying to snare him for her lunch and managed to sink one of her powerful claws into his hand.
“I was watching some wolverines and got a funny feeling that something was watching me,” he says. “I turned around and she was in attack mode. I shot her in the mouth, which knocked her down. She got up, and I got off a second shot into her neck, and she went down again.”
As he was reloading his rifle, her left claw dug into his right hand. Working from instinct, he turned around in the opposite direction to avoid that claw dragging through a ligament. As he did, she slapped him across the back with her other paw. He got off a shot to her heart. She ran 60 yards, forcing him to track her. She was dead when he got to her. “That’s the only female bear I’ve ever shot,” he says. “She’s mounted in the same position as when I first saw her.” She’s crouched in a corner at the top of the stairs in his Gun South Inc. (GSI) office in Trussville.
In a hallway of the first floor, he has another brown bear, a wolf snarling on a tabletop, bobcats fighting over a pheasant and a pair of Alaskan wolverines. “Pound-for-pound, wolverines are the most vicious animal alive,” Wheeler says. (Wolverines resemble small bears but are actually the largest member of the weasel family.) He has a wolf-skin rug stretched out on a wall in the office at GSI. On another wall is a pair of ptarmigan(type of grouse) he shot in Sonora, Mexico.
Wheeler, 77, started hunting rabbits, quail and squirrels with his uncle as a kid. He killed his first deer when he was 14. It had eight-points. “I went to Bud Jones’ house (in Tallapoosa, Ga.) and skinned it there in his back yard, and he mounted it,” Wheeler says. “I still have that mount. It’s probably my favorite.”
He made his first trip to Alaska in 1972, killing a caribou and a moose. He has gone twice a year ever since, sometimes to hunt, sometimes to fish. In addition to bears, wolves and wolverines, he has killed siska deer, pocka squirrels (similar to prairie dogs) and Arctic hare. Due to the pandemic, he probably won’t return this year. He has taken his two brothers, his two stepsons, and several other St. Clair County men with him on several trips. In fact, he took Gordon Palmgren on his first hunt to Alaska and got him his first bear.
“I was a registered guide in Alaska from 1984 to 1998 or 1999,” he says. “Licenses were for five years when I started, but they changed that to three years, and I didn’t get the notice in time, so I accidentally let my license expire. I would have had to re-test, and I didn’t want to do that.”
An Alaskan hunt usually lasts 17 days and involves a lot of walking. “If it’s a bear hunt, you’ve got to find the bear with a spotting scope,” Wheeler says. “You can see for eight miles through the scope, and if you spot one within five miles, you go after it.”
He has hunted big game in Canada, Montana, Colorado, British Columbia, Alaska, Texas, Mexico and parts of New England. He has been wing-shooting (bird hunting) 15-16 years in a row in Argentina, Nicaragua and Honduras. He has shot spur-wing and Magellan geese in the Yucatán Peninsula, and jack rabbits in Argentina so big that if laid across a horse they would drag the ground. “I tracked one running at 64 mph one night,” he says. “I could not bring it back to mount because of some disease.”
He used to have a lot of mounts in his Pell City Steakhouse, but the women employees there prefer seeing historic photos of the Pell City area, so he obliges them.
In the gunsmithing room at GSI, a wholesale gun dealership, Wheeler has the capes of a mouflon sheep from Austria, an elk from Saskatchewan taken with a bow, and a caribou his stepson, Danny Spann, shot in Alaska.
“The tips of the mouflon’s horns were worn off from where he rubbed them on rocks so they wouldn’t poke him in the eyes,” Wheeler says. “It’s called ‘grooming.’”
The elk is called a 7×7 because it has seven points on each side of its head.
“Only one caribou in 10,000 has a double shovel (flat, front points), and he’s shot three,” Danny says of Wheeler. “We were fortunate to see tens of thousands of the Mulchatnaherd of caribou in Alaska.”
Hunters in Alaska are required by the state’s Fish and Game Commission to pack out the meat or face a fine and the possible loss of a guide’s licenses. “One time we had all the meat in elk bags and a bear got some of it in camp overnight,” he says. “Fish and Game did not want to accept that we hadn’t hauled it all out, but I had made photos before and after.” Like Rob Smith and Gordon Palmgren, he always gives away the meat. “We killed 125 geese in one day in Nicaragua,” he recalls. “We put them on a wall in the town square, and they were gone by the next day. The natives got all of them.”
Asked what he likes about hunting, he cites being “out in nature, seeing things, making a lot of friends.” Take the bird boys who pick up the fowl that hunters shoot. “We (he and his friends) have gotten to see them grow up in Nicaragua,” Wheeler says. “We do a lot of personal things for them. We’ve sent them money for school supplies, candy, bought them shoes.”
He also likes teaching young boys to shoot, the way his uncle taught him, and he taught his stepsons. He’ll even take friends’ grandsons and nephews hunting, showing them how to track, read the signs, keep quiet and still, be patient and to enjoy the outdoors the way he does.
Wheeler probably will miss his 2020 trips to Alaska, thanks to COVID-19. He will still be able to hunt birds and small game on his own property in St. Clair, where he has a hunting club. After all, as he, Smith and Palmgren keep emphasizing, it’s not about the kill or the size of the trophy. It’s all about the hunt.
Story by Carol Pappas Photos by Carol Pappas and Graham Hadley and Glenn Wilson
Much like the single seed planted years earlier that grows into the towering oak tree offering shade and comfort to next generations, today’s Pell City Gateway Community Garden thrives as an example of what dogged determination, a patch of dirt and a smattering of seeds can become.
In 2013, a handful of Pell City citizens envisioned a garden for their community. In that group were Merry and Dave Bise, Renee Lilly, Lisa Phillips, Kelly and Sheree Wilkerson, and other community volunteers. Taking root on the old Avondale Mills property, the garden on a quarter-acre plot was small, but productive – just like their dream. Early help came from Pell City Civitans, which provided the nonprofit status they needed for grants, and the City of Pell City, which provided the patch of earth they needed to grow their bounty, and it began to sprout.
Seven years later – in a new location thanks to St. Simon Peter Episcopal Church – and a growing army of volunteers, Gateway Community Garden is reaping the benefits of what it sowed by helping others.
Early mornings and late afternoons nearly all year long, you’ll find a group of “do-gooders,” city dwellers on a mission, toiling in the dirt, nurturing their crops to feed the hungry.
Row upon row tells the story of their bounty – potatoes, okra, squash, bell peppers, corn, tomatoes, butter peas and pinkeye purple hull peas in summer. Collard greens, cabbage, turnip greens, broccoli, sweet potatoes and more okra emerge in the fall.
Fruit trees and bushes abound – apples, blueberries, blackberries – a future dream now in its fledgling stage. An irrigation system is in place. A greenhouse, courtesy of Master Gardeners, has been erected. And on any given day when the sun is out, chances are these gardeners are, too, watching over their harvest like protective parents tending to their young.
Debbie Smith, a longtime gardener and board member, calls it “God’s blessing. It is always amazing to me that you plant a seed in the ground and get this beautiful plant that feeds others.”
Lisa Phillips logging hours
Her experience as a gardener is rewarding in the way she is able to use her education background to teach others how to plant, grow and harvest. She describes the end result – whether it’s someone enjoying the garden’s solitude and beauty or actually laboring in the soil as a “healing and restorative garden. It works on both ends.”
Worth Barham, project manager who fellow volunteers have labeled ‘CEO,’ agrees. “It’s a wonderful experience,” he said, noting that the whopping two tons of food grown there so far have made their way to good homes in the Pell City Christian Love Pantry, Pell City Senior Citizens Center and Lincoln Food Pantry.
“Everything is based on the wonderful volunteers we have,” Barham said. Bringing different skillsets to the organization, they have been able to write grants, develop an educational component, bring community organizations into the fold, design the garden’s physical future and of course, grow food for the needy. St. Clair Co-op has provided many of the plants. David Wadsworth brings his tractor to clear the ground for planting, and Master Gardener Tom Terry tills the soil.
“Without the grants we have received, we would not be where we are today,” Barham said. “Without our volunteers, we would have no organization at all.”
Lisa Phillips became involved early on – first as a Pell City Civitan, then as a gardener. In addition to the Civitans lending their 501(c)(3) nonprofit status to the fundraising effort, the club has provided access for the handicapped and special needs, like accessible paths for wheelchairs and lower tables for produce.
To be a part of it has been “a great feeling,” said Phillips. “And I think it has been great for the community.”
“I am awestruck at what we have been able to accomplish with a small group of folks,” said Linda Tutwiler, another board member. Volunteers only number a dozen or so on a regular basis. “I don’t think any of us envisioned what we could accomplish in such a short time.”
In 2017, it moved from Avondale to a 5-to-6-acre plot given to them to use by the Episcopal church across the street. And that is when the garden grew to its next level and beyond. First helped by a Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham grant and then a Community Foundation of Northeast Alabama contribution as part of its Sacred Places grant program, the garden began to really take shape.
Three years ago, Barham said, the garden grew 820 pounds of fresh produce to give to those in need in Pell City and St. Clair County. Last year, it was 3,600 pounds. Today, their harvest tips the scales at 4,000 pounds.
Nearby is a newly constructed nature trail. A handcrafted, oversized sitting bench underneath the trees welcomes one and all as a place for quiet reflection. A journal to record thoughts is there, as is a miniature reading library. Peace, tranquility and reflection are key to this sacred space.
A greenhouse is home to trees that grow Meyer lemons and will soon grow plants from seed. A shed painted with brightly colored sunflowers holds tools of the trade and a work log, where volunteers record their hours for grants.
On a Saturday morning in November, a group of Scouts marveled at gardener Laura Wilson’s lessons of how sweet potatoes are grown, how to pick a turnip or cabbage leaf. They ran through garden patches with prize in hand – a freshly picked turnip – with smiles almost as wide as they were tall.
They earned a badge that day. But more important, gardeners will quickly tell you, is they learned the value of growing a garden with your own hands and what it can provide in life – not just for you, but for others.
Renee Lilly, one of the founders, talked of the personal rewards reaped in those lessons for her and her husband. “It’s a wonderful experience for me. My husband is involved, too. It’s a great thing for the community, and I’m excited the word is finally getting out,” she said, encouraging others to join them in the effort. “It really does take a village.”
The world’s longest paddle race showcases the wonder of Alabama’s waterways
Story by Paul South Submitted photos from Max Jolley, Great Alabama 650
Max Jolley was 7 when he picked up a paddle for the first time. And from that first pull of wood through water – a centuries-old skill he says takes the whole body, head to toe, mind and muscle – he’s been a recreational kayaker on the Coosa River and its companion lakes, Logan Martin and Neely Henry.
Needless to say, in 2019 – when the Alabama Scenic River Trail launched the maiden Great Alabama 650 – the world’s longest paddle race – he was intrigued. Fifty miles of the race traverses St. Clair County.
“Last year, I was interested in it,” he says. “This year, I was really looking forward to it.”
Jolley isn’t a competitor, but he and others like him play a valuable role in the 10-day race, He’s a “trail angel,” one of a small army of good Samaritans who do everything from providing meals and places to sleep to portage, helping weary paddlers portage their craft over land and in and out of the water at all hours of day and night.
The racecourse passes Jolley’s home. He helped competitors portage their craft out of the water at Logan Martin Dam. But the paddlers, not the paddling, draws Jolley to the competition, one of the least known events in American sports. For paddlers, it’s a magical mystery tour of Alabama rivers and lakes, featuring changing currents, landscapes, flora and fauna.
And for the trail angels like Jolley, friendships are forged. Competitors came from as far away as Hawaii.
“There are a lot of different-walks-of-life people that you meet,” Jolley says. “It’s just interesting talking to the paddlers and their ground crews, to see what they do and how they do it and why they do it.”
Alabama tourism officials, like Clarke County resident Linda Vice, president of the Alabama Scenic River Trail, hope the 650 puts the spotlight on Alabama waterways, the reason behind the race. Alabama has 5,300 miles of accessible waterways, stretching from the mountain streams of north Alabama southward to the salt and sand of the Gulf Coast. State tourism officials bill the trail as the “most experience-diverse river trail in America.”
“We started the Scenic River Trail as an environmental and tourism project, as well as a recreational thing,” Vice says. “What we wanted to do was get people out on the waterways so they could see the natural beauty and so that they could find a low-cost sport that anybody could participate in if they had a kayak or a canoe.”
The trail was the brainchild of Fred Couch, a veteran Alabama kayaker. It was decided that the trail needed a premiere event to draw attention to the river trail. After fact-finding trips to paddle races in Alaska, Colorado and around the country, Alabama organizers learned something.
A calm day and smoothe water as kayakers cross the lake to the stopping point
“We realized through them that we had the best race in the nation, because of the types of situations they would find themselves in as they traveled the trail,” Vice says. “It’s also the longest, with 632 miles. So, what we did was put together the race.”
While the inaugural race was open to all comers, qualifying was required to compete in 2020. COVID-19 sank qualifying this year, but 20 participants – tandem and individual racers, male and female – competed, and most finished the race.
“We started this race to draw attention to Alabama’s rivers as recreational waterways,” Vice says.
In a sports-crazy state that lives and dies each autumn Saturday with roaring football crowds, the Great Alabama 650 is different, the slap of wood on water, the silence of shifting currents, the quack of ducks and the splash of jumping fish.
“The diversity of landscape is a really big deal,” Vice says. “There are all kinds of fossils and plants. There are so many things.”
And then there are trail angels like Jolley, who do anything and everything to help the paddlers, from helping schlep wet, heavy kayaks, to cookouts featuring sizzling Conecuh County sausage.
“A lot of our angels will take them to their houses and cook ‘em a meal,” she said. “We have chapters of supporters and paddlers around the state.”
In its short history, the Great Alabama 650 is generating attention in the paddling community and beyond.
“The 650 is the most challenging race in the world according to the participants,” Vice said.
And the race is having an impact on tourism in St. Clair County, even with its short span in the county. Ecotourism is a growing sector of the local economy.
“We’re delighted that they’re here,” St. Clair County Tourism Director Blair Goodgame says. “Any economic, or any ecotourism is going to promote quality of life for the area here. It’s going to promote a healthy lifestyle, our connection to nature and wildlife and really push our citizens to be guardians of the resources that we have.”
Ironically, COVID-19 has led to an increase in outdoor activity, as residents look for socially distant activities to combat coronavirus cabin fever.
“COVID-19 has amplified things. But even before the pandemic, people were beginning to re-invest in the outdoors in their local communities. And luckily for St. Clair County, we have the natural assets here to be able to play on that. So, we have become just an outdoor recreational paradise because we do have so much potential to grow,” Goodgame says.
Don Smith, executive director of the St. Clair County Economic Development Council, says the 650 fits in the ecotourism sector of the county’s economic vision. Interestingly, Smith saw something similar, thanks to the trail angels who serve hikers along the Appalachian Trail. For hikers, those angels spark a fondness and an everlasting memory of those communities, and perhaps a desire to return.
“I think if we can continue to encourage those racers as they’re going through our community, the word about how we support those communities will get out and hopefully will get folks to come back and visit with us,” Smith says.
The kayakers in the Great Alabama 650 share the waters with ski boats, bass boats, sailboats and pontoons. And sometimes, hospitality comes in colorful – yet illegal ways.
“A guy in a boat offered one of the paddlers a beer …,” Jolley says with a laugh.
Not unexpectedly, the paddler refused the offer.
The paddlers, you see, have am abiding reverence for their sport. And like many of the residents on the Coosa, on Logan Martin and on Neely Henry, they have a reverence for the land and water. The attention wrought by the Great Alabama 650 may deepen that respect.
“It certainly won’t hurt,” Jolley says. “Boaters in general – kayakers, canoers, outdoor sports people in general – they respect the environment. They understand the water, and they know what happens on the water. And they want to keep the water clean.”
