Woodall Mountain was just two hours west of Huntsville, an easy day-trip for us in the intrepid Ford Focus, which we chose for its fuel economy and the fact that the Xterra’s severely worn tires were likely to fall apart at speeds above 55 mph. We launched after breakfast and reached the site around 11am. We chose the southern approach, which is basically a gravel road to the top, parked the car on the side of the road and walked.
The road was wooded, with signs of logging and future residential construction, along with the posted No Trespassing signs of a local hunting club. Sadly, as with many hikes in the Deep South, we saw trash. This gravel road had apparently long been the site of illegal dumping of everything from household refuse to appliances and farm equipment. The boy wanted to know why someone would throw a car seat into
the woods. “Because they are ignorant and lazy,” I told him. The most interesting thing we saw on the trek up was a box turtle named On. We know he was named On, because it was written on his shell. After a few moments for a photo op, we pressed to the top.The summit of Woodall Mountain – really just a hilltop, only higher than the high points of Florida, Delaware, and Louisiana – is now home to a cluster of cellular relay towers, and smells strongly of herbicides used to control vegetation. A dead centipede was enough of an omen that we moved the kids out of the grass. The sign that once marked the state’s highest point was gone; nothing remains today but the USGS Geodetic marker from 1932 to indicate the significance of this site. Though there was a civil war bat
tle fought in this area, no historical markers of any kind were left at the top. In total we spent no more than five minutes at this unfortunately anti-climactic summit.On the way down, to make things interesting, we decided to jog. We sang cadences and brutally hazed anyone who gave in to whining. At some point, the switch in the boy’s head clicked, and I saw the now-familiar wave of determination set into his features – this is the face that gives me confidence in his character and capacity for immutable resolve that will make him an unstoppable force as a man. He pressed on up a long hill, jogging steadily, and eventually cresting with significant 5-year-old effort. I was right behind him, urging him onward, for our car was only just ahead. I looked around to see how the girl was faring, but turned back when I heard the suspension rumble and engine roar of a vehicle approaching. I called out to the boy who was six feet ahead to tell him a car was coming. Suddenly, the roof and hood appeared over the crest of a hill less than fifty yards from us, hurtling forward at an irresponsible and nearly uncontrollable speed. Joyriding. I sprinted forward, waiving my arms above my head and shouting at the car to stop. The boy saw the car, and tried to cut to the side of the road, but his feet slipped on the gravel, and he fell, directly in the path of the speeding SUV, to his knees on the rocky road. I grabbed his shirt, yanking him to his feet and he did a panicked run-in-place gesticulation like a cartoon character; it was funny later, but not so much at that particular moment. The college-aged boy driving the truck slammed on his brakes, and slid twenty feet to a stop, as the boy and I finally got to the side of the road. I shouted profanities that suggested perhaps the driver was not thinking properly, or that his mother had possibly been named Cuddles or Princess. From behind me, I heard the wife shouting words sufficient for promotion to petty officer, had she been a sailor. The truck had stopped less than thirty feet from us – about 0.55 seconds’ worth of reaction time at the speed he had been driving. After a brief, stand-off, the kid drove on sheepishly. I looked at him, his Ole Miss baseball cap, his curly mop of hair, but he would not make eye contact.
At this point, the wave of post-adrenaline relief and fear began to wash over the boy, and the pain of his skinned knees hit him for the first time. He started to cry, and the wife, also shaken, ran to hold him. It was a watershed moment, the first near-tragedy in the boy’s life, and we all felt sick about it. I asked her to hold off, and I took the boy’s hand, and we started jogging again. We jogged back to the car, hand-in-hand, talking about how scary that had just been. The jogging helped. It cleared the jittery adrenaline shakes from his legs, it helped him forget the skinned knees, and it helped him get back on the horse. By the time we reached the car, the funny parts of what had just happened began to seem funny, and after long hugs all around, and a quick after-action, we waived to the SUV now driving down the hill (at a reasonable speed) and changed our sweat-soaked clothes. We knew we were as much to blame for the incident as the driver – growing up in the South, we are well aware of the dangers of rural drivers on gravel roads. We committed to a change of strategy on future hikes, in which Mom and Dad will serve as headlight / taillight whenever a walk on a road – no matter how seemingly remote – is required. We were shaken, but the sure sign of recovery was the familiar strain from the back seat: We’re Hungry!
For lunch, we stopped at an old diner in downtown Florence, AL, just across the river from Muscle Shoals. Stagg’s Grocery had been around for some time, and was a bit of a historical landmark. We read about it on a few websites, and decided to give it a shot. Cheeseburgers, griddle fried, on butter toasted rolls, came hot and juicy and just in time. The beef was fresh and high quality, and overall our lunch in this historic spot (read: total dive) was very good, and restorative.
I can’t say our trip to Woodall Mountain was anti-climactic, because in fact it brought far more climax than any of us wanted or anticipated. But it was tinged with disappointment. Disappointment in the general disposition of our fellow southerners, who seem to be increasingly defined by a single word: disregard. Disregard for our environment, which they spoil at every turn with litter and neglect. Disregard for themselves, manifested in the nation’s highest obesity and poor health rates – overweight, unkempt men and women seemed everywhere we went. Disregard for basic rules of common sense and consideration. Disregard for creating and maintaining anything of simple value that can be enjoyed simply.
On the way out of Tishomingo County, we passed a small dog, licking something foul in a crack in the middle of the road. A large old man with a thick country accent sat on a four-wheeler yelling at the dog to get out of the road. The dog, like the people around here, didn’t give a whip. He wanted that foul taste of whatever was in the asphalt crack, and nothing was going to stop him. It was another sign of the disturbing trend in our region of fiercely, stupidly clung to assertions of individual willfulness. I don’t care what you say, and I don’t care about the consequences, I can do what I want. Well, I hope that foul taste is worth it.
