Welcome to Barbour County, Alabama

I went South to my uncle Bob’s this Thanksgiving. We had sort of a family reunion, with my brother and me, my uncle Big Bob (my father’s little brother) and a bunch of cousins and cousins-in-law. Snake, Willie, Leroy, and Jeb. Traditional southerners, not Yankee transplants. Cigarettes and whiskey, sweet potato pie, black eye peas, and grits. Lots of meat. And dogs under the table to keep the floor clean.

I drove from Atlanta, figuring to arrive about ten in the morning on Thanksgiving Day. I made it all the way through Eufaula, Alabama, down highway 95, and onto county road 97 when it happened.

I had to pee.

I was way out in the country, on an empty two lane road, with nothing at the end but a bunch of rednecks in boats at a place called Baker’s Landing on Lake Eufaula. And even that was a few miles off. So I pulled over and walked around the side of the car, and peed in the ditch.

Most every country road in Alabama has a ditch at the edge. They give people a place to pee, and they trap cars that run off the road. Ditches and trees are two of the reasons those Alabama highways have more white crosses alongside them than a mountain road in Mexico. That, and the white lightning they make in the back country. My own great grandfather had a still behind the Lawrenceville house back before I was born. But I digress.

In the midst of my pee, a sheriff’s car rolled up, and the blue lights came on. I zipped my pants and walked over.

“Watcha doin?” He said. Wasn’t it obvious? I guess not.

“I was peeing.”

“Have you been drinking?” He asked this with barely disguised anticipation.

“No. I just had to pee. I don’t generally drink liquor, and never at nine in the morning.”

“I can’t believe this,” he said. “You didn’t try and hide from me or nuthin!”

“Hide? Why should I hide? I was peeing by the side of the road, and you drove up.”

“Do you want to spend Thanksgiving in jail?” Is this guy nuts, I wondered? But it got worse.

“Did you know I could write you up for indecent exposure, and you’d have to register as a SEX OFFENDER?” He asked this with some glee.

“Are you sure you haven’t been drinking?” He asked again, and stepped closer to sniff me, whereupon I caught a whiff of something on HIS breath.

“That sounds a little extreme for peeing in a ditch on a country road,” I said. “I don’t see how peeing in a ditch makes me a sex offender.”

Now, I was fully sober, respectable looking, and more articulate than most folks. I even grew up in the south. It was immediately obvious to me that this sheriff would have had a fight on his hands, if I’d been two drunk college boys instead of one middle aged author.

He didn’t know I was an author, but he’d figured out by then I wasn’t a drunk and I was too old to be a college boy. With a little more back and forth, he let me go.

It seems to me there’s a fundamental problem when Alabama sheriffs can turn a guy peeing in a ditch in the country into a sex offender with a $25 nuisance ticket. Don’t our cops have more important things to do?

“Welcome to Barbour County, Alabama” my cousin David said, when I arrived at the house.

The rest of the day passed uneventfully.


And before I go . . .

I broke down and ordered one of those Kindles from Amazon. My nice letter asking for a free one had gone unanswered, I’m afraid. So it’s due Wednesday, loaded with Books to Test Read it. I’ll report back soon . . . I will tell you this in advance, though: The bar for acceptable performance is now a hell of a lot higher, at $399 out of pocket, than it would have been if they’d sent me the thing for nothing.

I’ve also got one of the new Nikon D300 cameras coming tomorrow, thanks to Bill and Melissa at Nikon Professional Services. I had to pay for it too, but luckily I sold my D200 and got back most of the cost. Are there any photographers out there? Should I write about cameras and photography on the blog? Let’s hear from you. . .

I took up picture-taking about ten years ago, when my brother worked in advertising and had the Nikon account. He got me a free camera, and I liked it so much I kept it up, even though I had to buy all the subsequent cameras and lenses.


And that’s all for this rainy Monday night.