Tag: Features

A Character

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Meet Clayton Garner

Story by Elaine Hobson Miller
Photos by Wallace Bromberg Jr.

Clayton Garner sees things.

Neither ghosts nor drug-induced revelations, his visions are of projects yet-to-be constructed. His hallucinogen is creativity, and it often keeps him awake at night.

“I can see things that aren’t there,” he says. “I can see things finished before they’re started.”

A former florist, a historian and storyteller, 82-year-old Garner is a true Southern original. Some people call him, “quirky,” which in the South is just a polite term for “eccentric.” What else would you call a man who saves the cuttings from his white hair, draping them over outdoor wall decor so the fox wrens will have nest material? “I can’t stand my hair going to a landfill,” he explains.

But if Clayton Garner is eccentric, it’s because he chooses to be. He thrives on his eccentricity, wearing it as proudly as the homemade baubles and oversized turquoise necklaces that drape his neck when he goes out for Sunday dinner. He doesn’t care what people think of him. But like a larger-than-life character from a Tennessee Williams play, he does love the attention.

“I make tacky jewelry,” he readily admits. “If I’m not going to get attention, why bother?”

During his 40 years as a florist, Garner created floral arrangements for weddings and funerals. He also tore down, moved and rebuilt old houses and barns that were destined to be covered by the flood waters of a dam or eaten by vines and mildew. Now, his projects are in his own two acres of heaven in Cropwell, where he tends to his flowers and collects Garner genealogy and Avondale Mills memorabilia. He also raises purebred Nubian goats.

“I’ve been raising goats for 50 years,” he says. “I showed them at the State Fair and other shows. I’m a member of the American Dairy Goat Association.”

The man who sometimes wears a glass Jesus pin on a black vest doesn’t go to church, but has religious shrines all over his house. He believes in God and Jesus and miracles. He prays before a picture of Jesus he says turned from black and white to color overnight. He has a maple tree that was barren of buds one day, covered in its signature purple leaves the next. “I’ve learned to accept these things because I live with them,” he says.

That’s why a metal sign at the front of his yard proclaims, “Water garden plants, Miracle Acres.” Another, an historical marker, testifies that his main house was built in 1826. Confederate soldiers mustered there, and Cherokee Indians passed it during the Trail of Tears to Oklahoma territory. The house had been empty for 12 years when he got it 39 years ago. “It had three bare light bulbs, and the electricity was still on and the furniture was still in it,” he says. Built by Caleb Capps, originally it was just a one-room cabin with no windows but three doors. “In 1844, Capps sold it to John W. Jones from Virginia,” Garner says, as he begins the first of many historical recitations on an early spring tour of his property. “Jones had 10 children so he added another room and a dog trot. Several rooms have been added through the years.”

He used hired help when he first moved there in 1975, to take off the tin roof, build the porch back, to install drywall, wiring and plumbing. He put in a bath, and later tore it out and rebuilt it with marine-grade flooring and a cast-iron tub.

The chimney in wife Dean’s bedroom is original, but vines were growing from its red-clay chinking when the Garners took possession. When Garner pulled out the vines, the chinking came out. With the patience he exhibits during the hours of beading, barbed-wire bending and sewing that go into his costumes and decor, he rebuilt the chimney stone by stone, replacing mud with mortar.

His flair as a florist comes out in decor such as the barbed wire, dried okra pods and miniature wooden quail concoction hanging in Dean’s bedroom, and in the crosses of driftwood or wire and shells. Everywhere there are photographs: Of he and Dean, their daughter, their grandchildren and their ancestors. Early photos show a clean-shaven Garner with short hair, while in later ones he’s decked out in one of his costumes, or “outfits,” as he calls them, wearing a cowboy or farmer’s hat. And beads. Always the beads. They are draped over photo frames, deer antlers and crosses. They dangle from chandeliers and bed posts.

Garner points to a small, framed Christmas ornament. He made 30 just like it while recuperating from a broken leg five years ago, cutting pineapples from an antique, crocheted bedspread and sewing beads around the edges. “I’ve been doing this bead stuff a long time,” he says.

A pathway made of decorative cement tiles winds among the oxalis, English dogwoods, lenten roses, jonquils, yellow Oriental irises, bamboo, dwarf buckeye, narcissus and buttercups. Where they lead over a small stone-and-concrete bridge, Clayton tells new visitors, “Go look at those kittens and see if you can run them out from under the bridge.” He can barely contain his glee as the unsuspecting take a peak. Then he pulls a string that sets a tiny plastic-and-fake-fur troll to waving its hands and dancing from side to side. Clayton points to a spindly tree with twisted branches that stick out in every direction, like something from a surrealist painting. “This is the biggest Harry Lauder walking stick tree you’ll ever see,” he says.

In the midst of the shrubs and flowers stands a 15-foot stone bell tower Garner built a few years ago. One of its stones stands out because it’s black, charred from the fire it endured when Hall Hill School, in the former Avondale Mills village, burned down.

He doesn’t throw anything away, and sooner or later he finds a place for everything. Half-buried earthen jugs stick out of stone and mortar walls, colorful tin fish and green cactus stand silent and motionless behind a still-life “aquarium” made of boxed-in window panes, and an iron bell post flies a faded Confederate flag. It’s one of several posts someone gave him. “People give me stuff,” he says. “I don’t refuse it. I deserve it. I give away a lot, too.”

At the back of the property are two ponds, where he grows floating plants, water irises and spider lilies. “You can’t compare this place to nowhere else in this state,” he says.

Bits and pieces of St. Clair and Garner history are woven into the tapestry of the 22 rooms that make up the main house, grounds and outbuildings. The spindles in his kitchen doorway came from the Mays house that used to stand beside Cropwell Baptist Church. A chestnut bed has been in his family for 200 years. “A lot of Garners and Pearsons were born in this bed,” he says.

In 1979, he built an 8-foot-by-8-foot cabin playhouse for daughter, Michelle. The foundation stones came from his Grandfather Pence’s place on Will Creek near Attalla. Later, Clayton raised the cabin and dug out under it to build a wine cellar, which is stocked with empty bottles in a wine rack built into a wall. The rack is made from lightening rods out of Miss Iola Roberts’s house. “She was principal at Avondale Mills school,” he says. “She taught me. I was one of her pets.”

He has always salvaged old structures to make new ones. After 20 years at his own shop in Pell City and 10 with Norton’s Florist, he operated Clayton Florist for 10 more years out of a building behind his home that he refers to as “the barn house.” Framed with 2-by-6s that came from the former Tom Tucker Horse Arena in nearby Lakeside Park, it has seals of 12 x 12-foot heart pine from the old Possum Trot Church at Riverside near Huckleberry Pond. The logs in the addition to the house were salvaged from a dilapidated barn in Easonville that had to be moved to build Logan Martin Lake. Other parts came from a two-story log house on the Watson farm in Lincoln, which originally served as a post office for the Pony Express in the town of Chachotta on Choccolocco Creek. The inside walls of the barn house are lined with the last of the lumber sawed at Snead Lumber Company in Snead, Alabama.

“I have the doors to the butler’s pantry of Iola Roberts’s house, as well as its weather vanes,” Clayton says. “They are built into the barn house, too.”

The house is deceptively large, with three bedrooms, a bath, a kitchen and a hallway connecting one side to the other. Two of the rooms are upstairs, on opposites of the house. Each has its own stairway. There are photos of Marilyn Monroe and Queen Elizabeth II, because they are distant cousins, he says, and of Elvis and Larry Gatlin, because he likes Elvis and The Gatlin Brothers, a former country music group.

This is where he keeps the genealogy booklets family members have given him. He can quote the name of each person in his lineage for 47 generations, all the way back to 534. “Ten of those generations were in America,” he says. “The first cotton mill in Alabama, at Piedmont, was built by my great grandfather, William Marion Pearson of Glasgow, Scotland. He lived to be 106.” His other great grandfather, Thomas Jefferson Garner, who settled from Virginia, started the first Baptist Church in Alabama, he said.

Asked how he knows so much about history, familial and otherwise, he attempts to explain. “I’m a nut. I know a little about everything,” he says. “Trouble is I don’t ever forget. It just stacks up. If I told all I knew. …” His voice trails off, and he winks, hinting that he could get lots of folks around Pell City in trouble if he were to keep talking. “People tell their florist everything,” he says.

He has a collection of memorabilia from Avondale Mills, including signs and photos of the children who swept the floor of the mill 12 hours a day, six days a week, for the silver dollar paid to their parents weekly. An upstairs bedroom displays several manually-operated office machines from the mill. “My mother worked there,” he says. “I went to school there. I knew everyone in the mill houses. They’re all gone now, the houses and the people.”

Two hexagon-shaped, colored-glass windows in an upstairs parlor inspired him to build an addition to the barn house. “The windows came from an old cathedral in New Orleans, and they change colors as the light of the day changes,” Garner says. “The colors were sprayed on them. It’s a lost art.”

He built the 19-foot rock-and-cement chimney that is connected to an old Imperial Beaver wood-burning stove that he used to cook on. Now, the stove’s oven and warming box hold more of his beaded trinkets.

Some of his trinkets and costumes are seasonal, like the cape he made from a Christmas tree skirt and a fox-fur collar he found at a local thrift shop. When he wears one of his outfits, he accompanies it with a shiny, twisted, wooden walking stick, again draped with his signature beads. He also carries a tiny flask that he dramatically lifts to his lips from time to time, although it’s always empty. “I don’t dress like this all the time,” he confesses. “Only when I’m on stage.” One of his stages is the Cracker Barrel in Pell City, where he has lunch every Sunday. “I walk among the tables so everyone can see me,” he says. “The people love it.”

He says he can’t take credit for all of the decor in his buildings, though. “Dean crocheted the coverlets on five of the beds in our house and the barn house,” he points out. “She made most of the curtains, including the set that she made from striped overalls denim made at Avondale Mills here in Pell City.”

Come July, he and Dean will celebrate their 47th wedding anniversary. His wife says he is always doing something and can hardly stand the winter because he can’t get outside to putter.

“I keep this house clean, he keeps his clean,” she says, referring first to their living quarters and then to the barn house. “He goes down there and reads. Sometimes in the summer he takes a nap there because it’s so cool. He cleans it every spring.”

She says he’ll get an idea for a new project and will stay awake at night figuring out how to do it. Garner says when he can’t sleep, he gets up and heats a cup of low-sodium chicken broth, a guaranteed sleeping potion.

On the front porch of his main house, Garner has a stack of nine cedar boards from the old pavilion at Lakeside Park. Each is 2 inches thick and more than a foot wide. He plans to use them to build a curb for the well in his front yard. He wants to run a pipe into the well so he can draw water for his gardens. Where will he get the plans for that curb? He’s already seen them inside his head, of course. It’s just a matter of staying awake a few nights to work out the details.

Features

Dancing With Our Stars

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Taking to the dance floor for a good cause

Story by Leigh Pritchett
Photos by Wallace Bromberg Jr.

Pell City Fire Medic Andrew Minyard grinned and said being asked to dance before an audience is akin to blackmail.

Laura Shier is uncomfortable being the center of attention. So agreeing to dance in a public setting was a stretch for her.

“I’m stepping out of my comfort zone, big time,” the Cropwell woman said.

Shier and Minyard demonstrate that human quality which moves people to go beyond what they think they are capable of in order to support a cause in which he believes.

On Valentine’s Day, there were probably other such cases as 42 people competed in Dancing with Our Stars, an American Cancer Society fundraiser of Relay for Life of St. Clair County-Pell City.

Patterned after the television show, “Dancing with the Stars,” each of the 15 “celebrities” and two “celebrity groups” was paired with an “instructor.”

Thanks to a lineup of bankers, professionals, business owners, elected and school officials, firefighters and others who were competing, the event raised more than $7,600. The opportunity to watch these people strut their stuff drew an audience of 398 to Celebrations, said Doris Munkus, Dancing with Our Stars event coordinator. In fact, an overflow crowd lined three walls of the ballroom.

Some of the performers – such as Bar Kirby, Helen Woods and Retha Goode – are cancer survivors. Other dancers – Ernestine Bowie, Ken Miller and Tim Kurzejeski, just to name three – have been affected by the disease as they watched loved ones battle it.

Though Dancing with Our Stars was a St. Clair effort, participants from Etowah, Talladega and Jefferson counties lent their time and dancing abilities to make it a success.

Star-studded stories
To tell the story of Dancing with Our Stars from rehearsal to championship, Discover magazine followed Shier and Minyard’s group.

For Minyard, the story begins at Pell City Fire Station No. 1.

The Haz-Mat vehicle sat in the cold, dark night as its bay transformed into a discotheque, minus the mirrored ball.

Four members of Pell City Fire Department – Minyard and Firefighter Steve Cavender, both of Trussville; Capt. Tim Kurzejeski of Riverside and Fire Medic Justin McKenzie of Fultondale — practiced a line-dance routine to the 1977 BeeGees hit, “Stayin’ Alive.”

Ernestine Bowie of Pell City served as their “instructor.”

Originally, Bowie — a member of Pell City Line-Dancers and part of the praise-dancing ministry at First Baptist Church South – wanted to be a celebrity. But when she was asked to be an instructor and discovered who her students would be, she was thrilled.

“They are a great bunch of guys,” said Bowie.

McKenzie – another who was not comfortable dancing in public – found that he was actually enjoying this experience. “It’s fun.”

After running through the routine several times, the four John-Travoltas-in-training decided to don their protective gear, which was to be their dance attire for the performance.

That meant each man would bear an additional 35 pounds.

In between dances, the men would shed some gear in order to cool off a few minutes.

“It gets a little warm,” Minyard remarked. “It’s a lot tougher than I would have thought.”

Suddenly, an alarm summoned three of the four men to an emergency. That was when they demonstrated yet another 1970s dance – how to hustle.

Across town at Celebrations, Shier’s “instructor,” Ken Miller of Pell City, had to brag on his student.

“Laura has really taken to dancing,” said Miller, who has been dancing about 20 years. “Laura learned the steps quickly.”

To become proficient at the rhumba, which Miller called “the dance of love,” Shier had to learn to wiggle her hips in a sassy way, spin on the balls of her feet, lean into a dip and perform revolutions without growing dizzy.

As the couple rehearsed to the 1961 Dee Clark hit, “Raindrops,” Miller’s wife Sandy coached them through the routine she had choreographed.

Prior to becoming a celebrity, Shier’s dancing experience had been confined to what she has learned in the three or four years she has participated in the Pell City Line-Dancers. “That’s the only dancing (I do),” she said.

The thought of dancing in front of an audience made Shier nervous. Because some of Miller’s associates wanted to see him dance, the couple decided to do a trial run one Saturday at Miller’s place of work.

Dancing in front of people — and in front of lumber — at Home Depot helped Shier to practice focusing on her partner, as if no one else were in the room.

“That’s what I did Saturday — total focus,” Shier said.

Still, the night of the performance, Shier experienced pre-show jitters backstage.

“I really would like to hurry,” she said. “I wish it would get going.”

To occupy her mind, she went over the routine in her head, moving her feet and hands accordingly.

Then, she grew quiet and pensive. Finally, she said, “I’m trying to get my posture.”

Not far from Shier, the Fire Department disco-ers were facing hurdles. McKenzie was at home with a sudden, incapacitating illness.

Cavender, although present, was ailing. Usually the cut-up, he was now worrying aloud that he might start coughing during the performance.

Though Kurzejeski and Minyard were healthy, the captain could visualize disaster.

“I foresee a catastrophic failure,” Kurzejeski said. He could picture himself turning left instead of right and colliding with Minyard during the routine.

“I’m just glad that the lights are dim out there,” said Minyard.

Bowie pointed out that emergency calls, snow and the men’s work schedules had held the group to only three hours of practice total.

Nonetheless, Bowie had confidence in her students. “We’re going to bring the house down.”

Though Shier had hoped to be one of the first acts on the program, she and Miller had to wait nearly to the halfway point in the competition.

But when it was time, she and Miller glided regally and gracefully onto the dance floor.

The tiered, black dress Shier wore flowed elegantly, its embellishments shimmering.

Effortlessly, the well-rehearsed Shier and Miller floated from one movement to another. A dip near the end of the routine brought approval from the audience.

With her time in the spotlight complete, Shier expected to feel relief. Yet, she was puzzled as to why she was actually more nervous after the performance.

Nonetheless, Shier felt she and Miller had danced well.

“I think it was a real good routine,” Miller said.

Immediately following them were Bowie and the fire department trio.

Even before their introduction was finished, many in the audience rose and cheered. Cell phones and cameras nearly encircled the dance floor to record what was to happen next.

The three men, dressed in protective gear, moved in unison, with Bowie reposed in a Stokes basket on their shoulders. Skillfully, they lowered and turned the rescue basket until Bowie was in a standing position. Clad in neon protective attire that offered a burst of reflective color, Bowie stepped out of the basket.

Smiling broadly, the men stepped, tapped, pointed, clapped, turned and disco-ed to the delight of the crowd.

Not even waiting for the performance’s close, the judges issued their score of straight 10s. When the song did end, the group’s exit brought as much enthusiasm as the entrance had.

Backstage, they were elated, buoyed by the response.

“We hadn’t even done anything yet, and they were hollering at us!” Kurzejeski said. “It was an absolute blast. But the song felt about two minutes longer than we practiced!”

Minyard, though, made a confession: “It was a lot more fun than I thought (it would be).”

And Cavender, feeling slightly better by now, gave a report from the sources he most trusted — his wife, Sonia, and his daughter, Allie. “They said we did great!”

Bowie was ecstatic. “I am so happy and proud! I feel like we are winners.”

Bowie and her crew did place in the competition. They took second.

When approached for a comment about earning second place, Bowie’s actions spoke for her. She held the trophy above her head, screamed in delight, then threw her arms around the person asking.

Third place went to a tie-dyed, T-shirt-wearing group of eight, consisting of Bar Kirby, Teresa Carden, Blair Goodgame, Joseph Smith and Retha Goode, all of Pell City; Peter Boyle of Cropwell and Donna McAlister of Talladega. They danced to “Car Wash,” led by instructor Helen Woods of Hoover.

Earning the first-place award were Dr. Danny Hancock of Rainbow City, a chiropractor in Pell City, and his instructor, Realtor Nicole Anderson Walters of Pell City. The couple executed hip-hop and ballroom movements to an upbeat mix of tunes.

The judges, of course, determined three of the Dancing with Our Stars winners. However, the audience chose who would receive a fourth award.

During the evening, a bucket for each couple and group was circulated about the room. People “voted” for their favorite performers by placing money in the corresponding bucket.

When the proceeds in each bucket were counted, “the people’s choice award” went to the foxtrotting principal of Duran Junior High School South – Dr. Cory O’Neal of Cropwell – and his instructor, registered pharmacist Liz Nelson Starnes of Cropwell. They garnered more than $573 in votes.

“There was a lot of competition, so many good acts,” remarked a gracious Shier after the awards ceremony. “I had a good time tonight and enjoyed it.”

Go here for more about Relay for Life.

Features

Old Farts Farm

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St. Clair County’s grand menagerie

Story by Graham Hadley
Photos by Michael Callahan

Behind an unassuming front yard and garden, Sue and Al Maddox maintain one of the greatest menageries of interesting and exotic animals in St. Clair County.

It started 15 to 20 years ago with a weekly ladies day out to the farmers market to maybe buy a couple of chickens.

That was all Al, who was busy with a life doing specialty construction in fire damage repair and building restoration, was really willing to put up with.

“He said, ‘Fine, but no goats, horses, pigs or other animals.’”

The first trip yielded a few chickens for a coop out back; no big deal. The second trip a week later, a few more.

On the third trip? “Five goats, pygmy goats. No wait, six goats. We got old Butthead that day, too. He was going to be eaten in two days,” Sue said, laughing — something that comes as easy to her as breathing.

Her husband would not have approved, but he was not exactly made fully aware of what was going on.

“He left for work before sunup and came home after sundown, so he had no idea what we were up to in the back,” she said.

That was the seed that grew into what is now The Old Farts Farm, which is home to an amazing array of animals: peacocks, Mandrin and wood ducks, chickens of all kinds — from fancy Silkies to Rhode Island reds, giant rabbits and miniature horses, sheep, geese, quail, pigeons and turkeys. They also have several breeds of dogs running around, huge great Pyrenees that are almost as big as the horses, German shepherds, a Rottweiler and more, plus the property is patrolled by a variety of cats in all shapes and sizes. And, of course, there are the goats — mostly pygmy and dwarf goats, but several of the standard sizes, too, and in a variety of breeds.

And, with the exception of the rabbits and the birds, which have their own hutches runs and pens, they all live together in harmony. When Sue walks out into the farmyard, a Noah’s-Ark-like herd of animals comes running around the corner to visit — and beg attention.

Of course, at this point, Al, who is something of a ringer for Duck Dynasty’s Si, down to his camouflage jacket and cap, is fully aware of “what is going on in the back.”

When he first realized that just a few chickens had grown into an exotic animal farm, his response? “Fine, but I am not going to learn their names!”

Sue responded, “Well, of course I am not going to name them, they are farm animals” (which is also not entirely true — many of the animals have names now).

Al clarified, “No, I am not going to learn what kind of animals they are, what they are called!”

Watching as Al retrieved a Silkie chicken from its pen for a photo opportunity, she recounted this exchange and said, “Now he knows what all of them are.”

Despite his misgivings, The Old Farts Farm could hardly exist without Al. He not only helps care for all the animals, he put his construction expertise to work and built all the various pens and structures sprawling across the property to house the multitude of animals.

Still, Al grumbles good-naturedly about the entire affair.

“I used to drive big trucks all over, ran heavy equipment. Now I am down to lifting little birds,” he said holding up the captured Silkie for a picture.

“There are good days and bad days,” he pauses for a second, thinking. “Today — good day. I mean, it’s a full-time job, you never want for work.”

Sue gives him a look and a smile as Al returns the chicken to its cage and fetches a giant Flemish rabbit that is pushing 50 pounds for her to hold for the camera.

“Me, I am living the dream. Him — not so much,” she said.

“He grumps about the farm, but he really loves the animals. This is a man who, when it was freezing out a few weeks ago, he came out to the barn and laid on the concrete floor and let the baby goats climb all over him so they could warm up,” she said.

He does draw the line, though — “No pigs.”

And he was right, but Sue had to test the waters.

A man came by and wanted to trade a Vietnamese pot-bellied pig for a couple of chickens. “It could fit in the palm of your hand. It was so cute. I took it inside and showed Al. He just grunted. So I put the tiny pig on his beard nuzzled up to him.” Begrudgingly, Al consented.

They made a little pen for the piglet in the house that evening. Sometime in the early hours, Sue and Al woke up to the most eye-wateringly horrible smell.

“We thought sewage had backed up into the house,” she said.

It took them awhile to isolate the cause — the little pig had gone to the bathroom in the pen and then made a mess of everything.

“I carried the pig and pen out to the barn. I put an ad up online the next day. I think it sold in 20 minutes,” she said.

So, no pigs.

Though she loves all the animals — “even my little fish out there” — some animals are more equal than others. Two in particular top the list: The beautiful miniature palomino horse that follows her around like a puppy, ready to bump noses and give a “kiss” and Butthead, the goat she rescued from the dinner table that first time she brought goats home.

Butthead follows Sue and Al, too, but not for kisses. Butthead likes to try to bum cigarettes.

“I am glad I saved him. That is the coolest goat,” Sue said, laughing again as he tries to filch an unlit cigarette from her hand.

Lots of hard work too
Like Al alluded to earlier, as much as they love raising animals, it is a full-time job.

“Vacation is out of the question,” Sue said. “It’s a life. When it gets this big, it takes over everything.”

Caring for the adult animals; maintaining the cages; looking after the young animals, newly hatched and yet to be hatched birds in all shapes and sizes; running the business, cleaning — on and on, the work never ends and never lets up.

“Many days, we come in at 9 or 10 at night and we’re up before the sun, and we still have all the regular stuff to do. At 9 at night, most normal people have the dishes done and have had a shower. I also have to get online and do our Internet stuff,” Sue said.

The Old Farts farm has an active Facebook page, where they showcase their animals. But the social media site is also where Sue promotes the importance of local, independent farms.

The main barn now houses regular meetings, gatherings where other local farmers show off their animals or share their knowledge with each other.

Working together is the key for small farms. Their operation barely breaks even, if that, and many others operate on the same thin line of profitability.

“We are not going to make it unless we work together,” Sue said.

“Jerry Couch from Argo does the meetings. He knows a lot, especially about chickens. He has started taking his chickens to shows.”

They draw people from all over the region, many who want to start up a farm but don’t really know where to begin.

“We get people from Anniston. Drew Rhodes did a class on beekeeping. Eddy Bonner from Trussville showed us how to make rain barrels. You would be amazed at how fast you can fill a barrel with the rain water from your roof. And we had Jim Cole talk about garlic one time,” she said.

These classes not only help others, but they give Sue new ideas she can use at her property.

And there is always the possibility she will bring some new animal home — something else to love.

She got into the whole affair because she grew up with a father who loved animals, too, and he picked it up from his parents, who immigrated to the United States from Austria and farmed after working for Standard Oil.

The Old Farts Farm owes its name to Sue’s Dad.

“My Dad would say that word whenever a car pulled out in front of us. As he got older, he never dropped it,” she said.

Some day, Sue said, she may be willing to give up the farm, let her and Al get some vacation time and relax. But they have been married now for 20 years, and the farm is their life.

“He did not have a clue what he was getting in for when he married me. Surprise!,” she laughed, “No regrets!”

For more from the Old Farts Farm visit them on Facebook

Features

Rodeo Business

County pins hopes on new arena

Story by Mike Bolton
Photos by Mike Callahan

Hoping to cash in on a trend that is paying big dividends for cities and counties across Alabama and other southern states, St. Clair County is ready to begin a venture into the rodeo business.

The $1 million St. Clair County Rodeo Arena located in Odenville on Blair Farm Road is open for business. Officials cut the ribbon in early March, and a kids rodeo and a professional rodeo were a week later.

County officials are hoping the 125,000-square-foot, multi-use facility will attract everything from rodeos to horse shows, church revivals, weddings, antique car shows and massive yard sales.

The arena and surrounding 25 acres, which the county purchased from an individual three years ago for approximately $350,000, underwent an additional $650,000 in improvements last year. It now includes covered bleachers capable of seating 750 people, a covered picnic area, a concession stand, restrooms and showers and other improvements.

The dream is to eventually enclose the facility and add additional parking for horse trailers, running water to horse stalls, and water, electricity and sewage for those who camp when they go to rodeos, said County Commission Chairman Stan Batemon.

Lude Mashburn, an agriculture teacher at Odenville High School and a member of the county’s recreation committee, pushed for the county to purchase the facility as soon as he heard it might be for sale. He notes the county is full of rural kids who do not play sports but have agricultural interests. But it is also important to introduce kids who aren’t from rural backgrounds to rural lifestyles, he says, adding that children with knowledge of the rural life are disappearing every year.

St. Clair County’s entry into the rodeo arena business is not an unproven venture. Looking to draw tourism to a city that had none, the city of Andalusia in south Alabama turned to a virtually untapped tourist market in 2000. Andalusia built a $5 million, state-of-the art, enclosed rodeo facility. It provided an economic boon to that city with hotels and fast-food restaurants springing up nearby. The multi-purpose facility draws horsemen for rodeos and horse shows and visitors for a wide array of other endeavors. It has seen years when the facility was rented 50 of 52 weeks a year, a spokesperson said.

Batemon says the county did not go into its rodeo arena project blindly. Part of the commission’s homework involved visiting other arenas in Alabama and neighboring states.

“Several of us went to Andalusia to see that facility and to Shelbyville, Tenn., to see that facility,” he said. “The one in Shelbyville was a $14 million facility and, of course, we needed something more reasonable. Other people on our committee visited arenas in Cullman and Shelby County.

“These arenas are great for bringing tourists into your area. Our goal is to make ours self-sustaining.”

Batemon says the county is finally hanging a “for rent” sign on the facility, and the county’s immediate plans are to begin searching for events.

“We are looking for ideas right now,” he said. “There are so many possibilities other than rodeo-related events. We can bring in a roller and pack down the dirt and have amphitheater events. We can have car shows and motorcycle shows. We are limited only by what people can’t dream up.”

Herschel Phillips, a member of the St. Clair County recreation committee, says a lot of planning has gone into the project since the existing area was purchased three years ago. It was immediately obvious that improvements had to be made to turn the facility from one used by private individuals to one that could handle crowds.

“When you get crowds, you have to have seating, restrooms and food,” he said.

Engineer Kelley Taft received the bid to design the improvements to the facility. A horse and cattle owner herself and no stranger to rodeos, she was familiar with what the facility needed.

“We added roofing, bleachers and sidewalks,” she said. “We expanded the north end for cover for bleachers and poured an additional concrete pad so the bleachers wouldn’t be in the dirt. We basically did the same thing on the opposite side and made it into a picnic area.

“We built an octagon-shaped building with a 1,200-square-foot concession stand facing the bleachers and restrooms and showers in the back.

“I’ve seen a lot of facilities as I have traveled all over the Southeast. This is definitely an asset to St. Clair County. I’ve seen what these arenas can do for other communities and this one has the potential to do that for this area.”

Features

Camp Sibert

St. Clair’s secret military past

Story by Leigh Pritchett
Submitted photos courtesy of the
Scarboro Collection, John McFarland and
government archives

Etowah County spent much of World War II shooting at St. Clair County.

That is the lighthearted explanation that historian John McFarland of Rainbow City gives for the “friendly fire” relationship the two counties shared.

Nonetheless, his summary is factual: The woodlands of St. Clair and Etowah counties cloaked a military installation’s clandestine mission.

Called Camp Sibert, the reservation stretched 36,300 acres. Attalla and Gadsden served as the boundary on the Etowah County end of the camp. In St. Clair, Sibert extended into Steele and nearly to Ashville. The installation’s other two boundaries basically were U.S. 411 on one side and U.S. 11 on the other, said Wayne Findley, instructor at Gadsden State Community College and a historian who has spent 25 years researching the camp.

“It was huge, massive,” Findley said of Sibert.

And yes, Etowah did take aim at St. Clair, possibly millions of times.

That is because equipment was set up in the vicinity of Dunaway Mountain in Etowah County, very near to the border of St. Clair. During training sessions, mortar and bigger artillery were fired across Canoe Creek into St. Clair, explained Findley.

“The Chemical Warfare Service loved this place” because troops could use live rounds and chemicals, Findley remarked.

The mission of the camp was so stealth that soldiers were bound by an oath of secrecy, Findley said. They were not released from it until the 1990s, and those who lived around the camp apparently knew little of its mission.

“The people didn’t know a whole lot of what was going on in Camp Sibert,” only that some chemical weapons were involved, said 88-year-old Fred Rogers of Chandler Mountain in Steele. He was a teenager when the camp was established.

Yet, some facets of the camp were highly publicized and helped to promote the war effort. One piece of memorabilia in McFarland’s extensive Sibert collection is an October 1943 Senior Scholastic reader, whose cover photograph is of a smoke generator creating a smoke screen at the camp.

Findley also noted that Sibert fielded a baseball team – the Gas House Gang – that won a state championship. Plus, the camp’s band was sent on tours as an encouragement to citizens to be proud of their military.

The work to establish Camp Sibert commenced three months after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.

According to a chronology Findley has composed, the U.S. Army on March 13, 1942, inspected the site under consideration for Camp Sibert.

“Six days later, the area in northeastern Alabama was chosen over similar areas in West Virginia and Texas,” states an article written by Findley and fellow researcher Joseph T. Robertson (now deceased) for the January 1995 edition of The Alabama Review: A Quarterly Journal of Alabama History.

Fred Rogers noted that the expanse encompassed by the camp was known as the “flatwoods area” because it consisted of farmland and forestation, with few roads. “It was perfect for what they wanted to do with it,” Findley said.

According to The Review article, the site had to possess certain features needed for chemical warfare training: a secluded place where toxic gas could be used, basically level terrain for tanks and armored vehicles, and wetlands and forestation for bivouacs.

In June 1942 the government began issuing “Declarations of Taking” to obtain the necessary properties, the chronology states.

St. Clair County probate records available at Ashville Museum and Archives list owner after owner whose land the government was acquiring and the compensation each person was receiving. Some of the entities affected by the acquisition were Deerman’s Chapel Church and Deerman’s School, among others.

In all, 557 tracts of land in Etowah and St. Clair were involved in the acquisition, states The Review. “With the assistance of the Farm Security Administration, all 339 families who resided in the area were relocated with no major problems. Construction of the camp began immediately.”

Also in June 1942, a “tent city” formed to quarter those who would work on the camp before permanent accommodations were available, Findley’s chronology shows. The next month, the first trainees arrived.

On Christmas Day 1942, the camp was dedicated, “although it was only 80 percent complete. By the summer of 1943, the camp was self-sufficient” and could accommodate as many as 30,000 soldiers. With 41 miles of roads, the camp boasted 1,500 buildings, among them a hospital, theater and prison stockade, according to The Review.

Findley and McFarland said the camp also had an airport, store, chapel, lighted tennis courts, boxing ring and its own newspaper.

The scope of Camp Sibert was a premier undertaking. “Never before in the history of the Chemical Warfare Service had such an extensive facility been provided for instruction in the tactics and techniques of chemical warfare,” The Review states.

The “Post War Utilization Studies,” a War Department document dated September 1945, placed the total cost of construction and land acquisition at about $17.66 million.

The installation was named for Etowah native Maj. Gen. William Luther Sibert. During World War I, Sibert was handpicked by Gen. John Pershing to command the first U.S. soldiers into France in 1917, The Review reveals. “Because of his experiences, Sibert would be appointed the first Chief of the Chemical Warfare Services.”

At the time of World War II, some thoroughfares in Etowah and St. Clair were known by different names, Findley said. For example, the present-day U.S. 411 was “U.S. 11” then. What is now U.S. 11 was “Alternate 11.”

While the camp was in operation, names of some other roads were different too, stated McFarland. Pleasant Valley Road was “Range Road” and the site of Gate No. 2, while Canoe Creek Road bore the moniker “Impact Road.”

Findley added that the stretch from Attalla to Camp Sibert on what would later become Alabama 77 was called “Gate No. 1.”

The camp’s restriction on civilian traffic created a bit of a logistics problem for people in Steele who needed to go to other parts of St. Clair County.

“We couldn’t go through Camp Sibert to get to Ashville, the county seat,” Fred Rogers remembers. Residents in that part of St. Clair had to travel along “Alternate 11” to Whitney and on to what is now U.S. 231 in order to get to Ashville.

Though younger than his brother Fred, 85-year-old Hoover Rogers of Chandler Mountain also recalls a few things about the camp. One recollection is of seeing uniformed soldiers, with weapons in hands, coming over that mountain on training marches.

“I was intrigued by them and wondered where some of them were from,” said Hoover Rogers, who was a teen at that particular time in history.

He also remembers that word would get around when a celebrity, such as funnyman Red Skelton, was stationed at the camp.

Skelton was not the only famous person to be assigned to the camp. Heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis, featherweight champion Bobby Ruffin and actor Mickey Rooney also trained there, Findley said.

In fact, Rooney met one of his many wives while stationed there, Findley said.

McFarland, who gives presentations at the University of Alabama-Gadsden Center, described the camp as “a catch-all.” In addition to chemical warfare instruction for entire units and for individuals who were to become replacements, the camp also provided basic training to recruits and housed prisoners of war.

Originally, its POW camp was a satellite of the one at Fort McClellan in neighboring Calhoun County. However, it soon became a separate entity, even incarcerating some of Adolph Hitler’s elite SS, or “storm troopers” as they were called, The Review reveals.

By mid-March of 1944, more than 12,000 soldiers and 88 combat units had received training at the camp, reported Findley.

In all, 169 US chemical warfare units were instructed there, a number that represented 47 percent of all such American units involved in World War II, The Review states. Of the 169 units, “44 were Black units.”

McFarland said Black soldiers generally were in smoke generator units or clerical positions, while Caucasian soldiers tended to be members of chemical mortar battalions.

In the spring and summer of 1945, the dynamics of World War II changed significantly, ultimately sealing the destiny of Camp Sibert.

With Germany surrendering first and Japan following a few months later, the need for the camp’s services greatly diminished.

In September of that year, the War Department issued its “Post War Utilization Studies,” on whether to make Sibert a permanent camp capable of accommodating 19,950 enlisted men, plus officers. Such an endeavor was estimated at $45 million. For this and other reasons, the project was deemed unfeasible.

As a result, the camp was decommissioned; the fixtures and contents were rendered to surplus; properties were sold to the original owners or to interested parties; and land, buildings and infrastructures were given to municipalities.

The Rogers brothers experienced some of the results.

After the war, Fred Rogers worked at AAA Pottery in Attalla, a business that was housed in old Army buildings. He later taught and was principal in a school situated on former camp property.

Hoover Rogers was a teacher and later principal of Chandler Mountain School, which benefited from surplus goods from the camp.

Their older brother, Henry (now deceased), purchased some Steele property that had been part of the camp and built his house there. Henry also worked as a civilian on “fire watch” (patrol duty) at the decommissioned camp until it was completely closed. When all surplus items were relocated and warehoused in Etowah County’s Glencoe, his job moved there, too, according to his brothers.

As a teen, Findley attended junior high in what had been the officers’ club. In the lunchroom, the autographs of Red Skelton and Mickey Rooney were still prominent. Findley also climbed chimneys that had been part of the camp hospital and collected brass he found near the rifle range.

McFarland, who lives in Etowah County close to the St. Clair border, resides on property that was within the cantonment of Camp Sibert. A few years ago, he received notification that his property qualified for a government cleanup effort.

Some 40 years after World War II, Congress determined that former defense sites should be cleaned up, according to Lisa Parker, deputy public affairs officer for the Mobile District of the Army Corps of Engineers.

It was the intent of Congress “to restore properties formerly owned by, leased to, or otherwise possessed by the U.S. and under the jurisdiction of the Secretary of Defense,” Parker stated.

Of the St. Clair sites that were investigated for possible cleanup, only one was found to need attention, noted the Corps of Engineers. Work at that site — which includes an area in Steele, close to Interstate 59 — is in progress.

Among the items already discovered are “4.2 mortars, .30-caliber rifle, machine gun, .22-caliber rifle, sub-machine gun, .45-caliber pistol, grenade, artillery, bazookas and anti-aircrafts,” said Parker.

Editor’s Note: Additional assistance with this article was provided by Charlene Simpson of Ashville Museum and Archives, RoseMary Hyatt of Northeast Alabama Genealogical Society, Pat Coffee of the Town of Steele, Jody Gilliland of Chandler Mountain Baptist Church and Jack Hayes of American Legion Post 109, Pell City.

Features

Boats Built by Hand

[Show as slideshow]

Bob Barnett’s love of boats comes alive in wood

Story by Graham Hadley
Photos by Wallace Bromberg
and courtesy of Bob Barnett

Sitting in what is easily described as a “dream” workshop a few blocks from Logan Martin Lake is a work of art in wood — a Pete Culler designed Wherry Yawl boat.

It is the pride and joy of professional structural engineer Bob Barnett — and though the boat-project was started by many hands, it will be his alone that finish it.

Every piece of wood that went into making the boat, every line, from bow to stern, has been carefully handcrafted and expertly fitted together, down to the brass caps where the wood is joined.

Though work on this particular boat has been going on for around four years, wooden boat building has been something Barnett has been moving toward his entire life.

“I grew up around boats. My family had boats, and I was always around the water,” he said. A photo of Bob, his wife Carole and their children on his father’s sailboat adorns the wall of what is possibly the ultimate woodworking shop in St. Clair County.

Over the years, Bob has owned a number of boats, from their Catalina 470 sailboat they keep in Pensacola, Fla., to a variety of Ski Nautique and similar watercraft — even a crab boat, the Lilly G, they converted for recreational use on the lake which resembles the boat from the African Queen, complete with a covered awning that runs the length of the boat.

But there was something special about wooden boats that Bob felt drawn to.

“I saw the wooden boats, but I had no idea how to build one. Then I saw the Wooden Boat School when I was reading Wooden Boat Magazine,” and everything changed, he said.

“I love that school — it is kind of like scout camp with beer,” he said.

The school is located in Brooklin, Maine — which Bob describes as being about like Cropwell, but without the adjoining Pell City.

Between his engineering job, his position as chairman of the board for St. Vincent’s Health Systems, a teaching position at the University of Alabama and a host of other activities, Bob said he can easily be working from 60 to 80 hours a week, sometimes more. So it was a bit of a trick to work in boat-building school.

He finally got his opportunity to take the first class — fundamentals of boat building — because it coincided with a business trip.

The connection to boat building, the school and his instructors was immediate.

“I walked in and there was this guy, my first instructor. He had white hair down to his shoulders — a classic hippie. … He lived totally off the grid — used all hand tools,” Bob said.

At the time, Bob said, he was the first registered Republican in St. Clair County — “but I learned to love that guy. He was very talented. He showed me how to use hand tools, and once you learn to use hand tools, you can do so much” — and you are much less likely to accidentally cut off a finger.

Before that, Bob had mostly been using power tools for woodworking — and he still does. His shop, which he built complete with a kitchen, full bathroom and “man cave” area, was custom designed with a dust removal system to work in conjunction with his power tools.

But his love of hand tools is immediately evident, with his hand planes lined, row after row, on shelves along one wall.

Since that first class, Bob — and his wife — have returned to the school again and again, taking classes in everything from boat finishing to sailing. The latter, he admits, was less about the learning and more about getting the chance to go sailing in Maine. Most recently, he was there as an assistant instructor.

Bob says the classes are not just a learning experience, but they are a way for him and the other participants to relax, work together and just enjoy themselves. They take away far more than just the knowledge with them when they leave.

During one sailing class, “there was this older gentleman. I was really worried about him. He could barely get on the boat. By the end of the week, he was climbing all over that thing, even steering the boat. I bet he is still grinning,” Bob said.

As part of those classes, he has built many different wooden boats over the years — always as a group project. But there was something about the Wherry Yawl that resonated with the structural engineer.

“I have built several others, but I have never worked on a boat that has as pretty lines as this one does,” Bob said.

He and his fellow classmates had been working on the Yawl — a sturdy little three-man boat that was used in the 1800s and turn of the century as a kind of water taxi to ferry people from ships at anchor to shore. It has oarlocks, but also a running board and small mast and sail.

“You would pay the man your money, and he would take you out to the boat in one of these,” Bob said. Because of its intended use, the Wherry Yawl is a very strong design, built to withstand even brushing between a ship’s hull and a dock.

He very much wanted the boat, and luck was on his side.

“At the end of class, we would all put our names into a hat. Whoever got their name drawn had to pay for the building materials and supplies and got to keep the boat. I put my name in, and I got to bring it home,” he said.

Though the boat classes can complete a project in a short period of time because there are so many people focused on the work, once home, the Yawl has taken years for Bob to finish because of his busy work schedule.

“I work full-time, plus there is St. Vincent’s, and I teach an engineering class at Alabama — I need to tell them I need to drop all that so I can go build boats,” he joked.

This will be the first boat he will have completed in his shop here — and the work is almost done. It needs a mast and running board set and some other details and then finishing and painting.

That last part is the big hump Bob said he needs to get past — finishing is his least favorite part of the boat build.

“I hate painting,” he said, and a large portion of this boat, especially the outside of the hull, will be painted.

Even so, Bob hopes to have the boat in the water by early summer — and then it is on to his next projects. He has a roll of boat plans in his shop — “I enjoy looking over boat plans more than I like reading a book. It’s the engineer in me.” He wants to build at least three of them.

But he has other projects on his plate, too. The Lilly G is a great crab boat, but that design leaves something to be desired with regards to passenger comfort. Bob plans to build some seating for the boat and relocate the console and controls to better suit its use as a recreational craft.

Then there is the beautiful 1958 Christ Craft Sportsman in another building in the shop complex. The vintage motorboat is a true project — it has minor hull damage on one side and the wood needs to be completely refinished and the interior and engine rebuilt.

“It came ‘what-you-see-is-what-you-get.’ Basically a hull and a pile of parts. I am still looking for original plans. I am not sure what goes where,” Bob said.

But like all his other projects, Bob will figure it out. And when he is done with that, he will move on to something else. Woodworking — he has built all sorts of cabinets and other pieces — and boat building, in particular, are his cathartic escape.

“I picture there always being a boat in this shop. When I finish this one, then I will start another one,” he said.

Features