Scene from Tuscaloosa yesterday. Photo from Marvin Gentry/Reuters via NBC photo blog.
I was 14 when I moved to Tuscaloosa, Alabama from Atlanta. My mother got a job teaching at the University and we didn’t have a lot of money, so we decided to live downtown near the school, about 5 blocks from that house of worship Bryant Denny Stadium.
The tornado above Bryant Denny.
I liked the way I sounded slightly fancy when I told people that yes, I lived in the Historic District. I left out the rental part, and the fact that we lived near lots of students, and that the house was far from pristine. Moving from a 1960s ranch in a standard issue neighborhood near all the strip mall conveniences of Atlanta, our first Tuscaloosa house felt very old to me, very southern, and very grand.
Our first house in Tuscaloosa at 1521 8th Street, a rental.
I attended Central High School (C-C-C, C-HIGH!), my first time at public school (with public school kids!!). One of the biggest fears I had that first day of school was the lunch room. On top of not knowing a soul, I had never been to school with a cafeteria and had no idea about the politics associated with that room. I distinctly remember walking in and seeing white people on the left and black people on the right. Just keep walking, I told myself. If you stop, everyone will look at you and know you are terrified, they will see those stress zits on your chin, talk about them forever, and you will probably never have a boyfriend as a result. But isn’t this 1991? I watched Mandela’s release from prison a year earlier! Keep. Walking. And I did, right up to the line, where the most exciting thing happened. Trays of hot steamy food before me, neatly arranged bills in my brand new Esprit purse for my first day of high school, I got to choose whatever I wanted to eat.
Did I want fried okra and fried blackened catfish fingers with peanut butter cookies for $2? Um, yes please! Sorry Jamie Oliver, but that became my standard lunch over the next couple of years. Sometimes just a double order of fried okra and peanut butter cookies, sometimes collards in rich dark liquid instead of okra. Three fat, soft, peanut butter cookies the size of a china cup saucer for $.35, gently dropped into a waxed paper fold-over bag that fit them snugly. Twenty years later, taste buds having experienced so much more, no Nutter Butter from Bouchon Bakery or homemade attempts could ever come close to those cafeteria lady peanut butter cookies, my Alabama madeleines.
That year my 19-year old sister eloped, I had my first kiss, my first sip of wine (a non-vintage Boone’s Farm Strawberry Hill), and I joined a high school sorority. My girlfriends and I would walk to campus to check out the shaggy haired college boys. We’d finish the night with cheese enchiladas and free chips and salsa at Pepito’s on the Strip. We told my parents where we were going and when we would be back. Such independence. It was heaven.
President's Mansion, University of Alabama.
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