Evelyn wanted seafood for dinner and she picked a place, though it was not very good. I had oyster stew and two crabs. They turned out to be stuffed and not very good. Evelyn had cold-boiled shrimp and they were a bit mushy. This should be a good area for seafood. This is certainly a shrimping region. If you saw FORREST GUMP, I believe we are in Bubba-Gump territory. Well, that may be further south. The whole Gulf coast is shrimping grounds.
We stop to get gas and to wash the Insect Dead from our car. The splats are in the low thousands probably. Gandhi would not be able to drive these roads at all. You can tell the cars that have come a distance from local traffic. Distance traveling causes a real accumulation of The Insect Dead.
As we got close to Mobile, Alabama, I started looking for a place for the night. The front-runners seemed to be Hampton Inn for comfort at about $61 or a place called Olsson's that was cheap, about $31. Evelyn voted for cheap. We tried Olsson's. They charged $29, less than what they were listed for in AAA. Olsson's family have apparently been running a motel here since 1936. This is our cheapest night so far. We got two queen-sized beds, cable TV, a refrigerator in the room. The room is a little dark but it is one of the best motels so far and is at the same time the cheapest. The one little weird thing is that they want us to unplug the TV and the refrigerator when we go out.
Turner Classic Movies is running a marathon showing of the documentary series HOLLYWOOD. Of course, we are crazy about film history. I had seen it before, but I watch it again for the parts I had missed. I try to write in my log while it is on, but it is about silent film and keeps dragging my attention away.
At 11 PM it is over and I work on my log till 11:30 PM. I slept better than most nights.
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09/08/97--Mobile, Alabama: Forts and Battleship Memorial Park:
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I like being on the road. What I will not miss is having a thermostat that keeps things at a nice even temperature and a toilet that flushes. These are the most common mechanical devices in motels and the ones that seem to be the least reliable.
We each woke up about 6:45 AM. We agreed that while the room seemed nice, the thermostat needed improvement. Evelyn was warm at times. I was cold. But even as we sat there I went from cold to warm.
We were out of the room about 8 AM or earlier. There must be a refinery near us someplace. There is an unpleasant odor on the road. There seem to be a lot of refineries in this area. There are few industries that so make an area unpleasant as oil refineries. The ones in New Jersey have gotten considerably better but we still turn the air on recirculation when we drive the New Jersey Turnpike. I suppose I should not complain. When I was growing up my income came from the chemical industry. My father was a polymer chemist. He worked places like Nitro, West Virginia. Boy, did that place smell bad. Sulfur was the smell, if I remember.
We cross a long white bridge to Dauphin Island. We were hoping to pass a place to get breakfast. There does not seem to be much.
We get to Fort Gaines. The sign says 'Established in 1821 for defense of Mobile Bay and named in honor of General Edmund Pendleton Gaines, 1777-1749 who played an important part in early Alabama History and while Commandant of Fort Stoddard captured Aaron Burr near McIntosh in February 1807.' I could not have said it better myself.
Breakfast was some handfuls of dry cereal and some orange-ade, part of this balanced breakfast... Balanced on the dashboard.
Late in the Civil War Mobile Bay was the last post still useable by the ships blockade running. The South had two large forts on either side of the bay. On August 5, 1864, David Farragut took fourteen wooden ships and four Monitors to the entrance of Mobile Bay and began a battle with Fort Gaines the largest of three forts on the bay. The smoke was so bad that Farragut climbed a mast and had himself lashed there to see he battle above the smoke. The leading Monitor, the Tecumseh, hit a mine and sank. This stopped the fleet in range of the guns. A way was needed to get through the mines. Farragut decided to use his flagship risking the life of all on board. 'Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead.' By luck he found a path through the minefield and the fleet used it. Inside the bay the fleet could pound the three forts at will and three weeks later the forts fell and the blockade was water-tight.
Fort Gaines itself is not well maintained. The guide leaflet has a walking tour, but not one that always exactly corresponds to the numbered posts. The fort is five-sided with cannon turrets at the corners. It is mostly brick with concrete reinforcements.
When Ken Burns was doing research for his Civil War documentary one of his researchers came upon a letter one of the soldiers-Sullivan Ballou-sent his wife, read it, and started crying right there. In it, the soldier wrote that he did not know if he would survive. If he did die she should know that he loved her and if there is any way his spirit can return when she feels the breeze on her cheek, that will be him and in the afterlife they will be together again. It is a difficult letter to read without crying, especially knowing that he did die in his next battle. They quote the letter at the exhibit. But they point out that he never actually mailed the letter. He did mail two or three 'chatty' letters dated after the letter in question. This may mean that he never intended to send the letter or perhaps he wanted it to be received only if he died. The exhibit called it the best-known letter of the Civil War. I only knew it through the Ken Burns documentary.
My very dear Sarah:
The indications are very strong that we shall move in a few days-perhaps tomorrow. Lest I should not be able to write you again, I feel impelled to write lines that may fall under your eye when I shall be no more.
Our movement may be one of a few days duration and full of pleasure-and it may be one of severe conflict and death to me. Not my will, but thine O God, be done. If it is necessary that I should fall on the battlefield for my country, I am ready. I have no misgivings about, or lack of confidence in, the cause in which I am engaged, and my courage does not halt or falter. I know how strongly American Civilization now leans upon the triumph of the Government, and how great a debt we owe to those who went before us through the blood and suffering of the Revolution. And I am willing-perfectly willing-to lay down all my joys in this life, to help maintain this Government, and to pay that debt.
But, my dear wife, when I know that with my own joys I lay down nearly all of yours, and replace them in this life with cares and sorrows-when, after having eaten for long years the bitter fruit of orphanage myself, I must offer it as their only sustenance to my dear little children-is it weak or dishonorable, while the banner of my purpose floats calmly and proudly in the breeze, that my unbounded love for you, my darling wife and children, should struggle in fierce, though useless, contest with my love of country?
I cannot describe to you my feelings on this calm summer night, when two thousand men are sleeping around me, many of them enjoying the last, perhaps, before that of death-and I, suspicious that Death is creeping behind me with his fatal dart, am communing with God, my country, and thee.
I have sought most closely and diligently, and often in my breast, for a wrong motive in thus hazarding the happiness of those I loved and I could not find one. A pure love of my country and of the principles I have often advocated before the people and 'the name of honor that I love more than I fear death' have called upon me, and I have obeyed.
Sarah, my love for you is deathless, it seems to bind me to you with mighty cables that nothing but Omnipotence could break; and yet my love of Country comes over me like a strong wind and bears me irresistibly on with all these chains to the battlefield.
The memories of the blissful moments I have spent with you come creeping over me, and I feel most gratified to God and to you that I have enjoyed them so long. And hard it is for me to give them up and burn to ashes the hopes of future years, when God willing, we might still have lived and loved together, and seen our sons grow up to honorable manhood around us. I have, I know, but few and small claims upon Divine Providence, but something whispers to me-perhaps it is the wafted prayer of my little Edgar-that I shall return to my loved ones unharmed. If I do not, my dear Sarah, never forget how much I love you, and when my last breath escapes me on the battlefield, it will whisper your name.
Forgive my many faults, and the many pains I have caused you. How thoughtless and foolish I have oftentimes been! How gladly would I wash out with my tears every little spot upon your happiness, and struggle with all the misfortune of this world, to shield you and my children from harm. But I cannot. I must watch you from the spirit land and hover near you, while you buffet the storms with your precious little freight, and wait with sad patience till we meet to part no more.
But, O Sarah! If the dead can come back to this earth and flit unseen around those they loved, I shall always be near you; in the garish day and in the darkest night-amidst your happiest scenes and gloomiest hours-always, always; and if there be a soft breeze upon your cheek, it shall be my breath; or the cool air fans your throbbing temple, it shall be my spirit passing by.
Sarah, do not mourn me dead; think I am gone and wait for thee, for we shall meet again.
As for my little boys, they will grow as I have done, and never know a father's love and care. Little Willie is too young to remember me long, and my blue-eyed Edgar will keep my frolics with him among the dimmest memories of his childhood. Sarah, I have unlimited confidence in your maternal care and your development of their characters. Tell my two mothers his and hers I call God's blessing upon them. O Sarah, I wait for you there! Come to me, and lead thither my children.
Sullivan
[Source: Brown University Alumni Quarterly (Nov. 1990): 38-42]
I thought the sales tax was bad in New Jersey at 6%. In Massachusetts it is only 5%. But standard seems to be 8% give or take a little. Where we are it is cheaper and we have toll roads. The roads are a pain, but I prefer that to so much sales tax.
Our second fort goes back to the Revolutionary war. Sign says: 'The Revolutionary war at mobile: Siege of fort Charlotte (Conde) 1780 -- Spain, America's ally, declared war on Great Britain in June 1779. Bernardo de Galvez, governor of Spanish Louisiana at New Orleans, led the attack against the British along the lower Mississippi River and Gulf Coast. In February 1780, Galvez laid siege upon British forces here at Ft. Charlotte resulting in its surrender and the capture of the City of Mobile, March 14, 1780. Galvez next captured Pensacola and accepted the British surrender at West Florida, May 9, 1781, thus aiding the American colonists by removing the British threat from the Gulf of Mexico.'
There is a fifteen-minute tape, but it is of little historical interest and it is much more about pleasures of a modern Mobile, Alabama. There seems to be competition between Mobile and New Orleans. They are dredging the river to get some of the port traffic that currently goes to New Orleans. They are very proud of having an older Marti Gras than New Orleans also.
The fort has been restored with totally modern materials, has azaleas growing and a nicely manicured garden to almost entirely destroy the historic feel. |
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