The view from here, Logan Martin Lake, Cropwell, Alabama: Glynn Wilson

PELL CITY, Ala. – We’re going through Blackberry Winter here this week and it’s not a bad thing, especially if you are camping out.

Last week the afternoon high temperature reached the upper 80s, with the low at night only dropping to 70 degrees Fahrenheit. It’s about to get hot in the American South – not the place to be anymore, unless you like being cooped up inside in the air conditioning hiding from the bugs all day and night for six months of the year.

Climate change due to global warming is real, believe it, or not. Ask the people of Western North Carolina, where the devastating floods from Hurricane Helene are still being felt, only now the woods are on fire.

There are more and more believers in the Capital of Country Music too in Nashville, where they can’t seem to catch a break from the massive tornadoes and floods. When will some country star finally write and sing a song about global warming? Maybe people will start believing then.

Unfortunately it is too late for “belief” now, as the Trump administration is doing everything he can think of to destroy everything the Biden administration did to try to prepare us for the worst, now trying to bring back coal mining and trying to find more oil to drill for and burn, even as solar and wind energy was getting cheap enough to convert much of the power grid.

Not enough to power the Artificial Intelligence data centers, of course, where Elon Musk is still using giant diesel generator trucks in Memphis and Bill Gates of Microsoft is thinking about reviving the dead nuclear plant at Three Mile Island.

Like Forest Gump said, according to Winston Groom, “Stupid is as stupid does.”

Hillary Clinton just called it Dumb in the New York Times the other day, even as Trump revoked her security clearance and pulled the Secret Service detail off her case.

Dumb indeed.

A close cousin from here who now lives in High Point, North Carolina – the furniture design capital of the world – asked about the place on Facebook. He had moved to Atlanta a long time ago, but grew up in part in Chula Vista, where I used to visit as a kid, after his family moved back here from an Army base in Germany.

Not much has changed here, except there may be fewer Trump signs and flags now. Apparently some people didn’t bother to replace the worn out ones from 2016. The Confederate Battle Flag still has a solid presence, however, especially right down the road in the General Lee Campground in Cropwell and surrounding area.

They still sell the best BBQ sandwich around at the Texico station on state Highway 231. But the Big Bull Motel is not the Big Bull anymore, although there is still a steakhouse going by that name. A cousin named Mary used to manage the place.

Even the big red bull sign is gone. I wonder if it was knocked down by one of the many tornadoes that tend to pass through here, no longer just a summer phenomenon? I couldn’t find out anything about it on Facebook, or using Google to search. Guess it happened too long ago for the internet memory. Some of the worst storms now come just in time for Christmas.

If you have followed me for a long time you may recall I like to buy most of my clothes at discount outlet malls. There’s one in Foley, Alabama, another in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania too where they charge no sales taxes on clothing. And there’s one near here in Leeds, where they now operate a large drive in movie theater with two big screens, or did. Not sure it’s open anymore. But they do brag to have the largest park in the world where kids can bounce around on plastic balls. Some distinction in an era when we should be trying to rid the world of plastic.

The other day on my way to camp down near Montevallo and meet up with an old friend, I took the back way to the outlet mall and ended up on Chula Vista Mountain Road to get back to Interstate 20, and decided to scout the entrance to a hiking trail up a mountain I remember climbing as a kid around here. The land around Bald Mountain, elevation 1205 feet, is now a Baptist WMU camp with a private gate. Guess you have to be a Baptist woman to get to make that hike these days. When I was a teenager in the 1970s, I knew hippies who liked to go there to trip on LSD or Psilocybin mushrooms. Not that I would do such a thing, wink wink.

For now I am just biding my time, mostly sitting on my ass in a comfortable camp chair, three-quarters retired from daily news and politics. It just does not seem to do any good anymore anyway to report on what Trump and Musk said and did today. People are off watching some podcaster on YouTube or Substack. Freedom of the press on the web seems to have gotten lost in the internet shuffle.

But I have a new plan to head back to Washington in a few weeks. Getting new glasses back in December I found out I need cataract surgery, and since Alabama never expanded Medicaid, I’m better off going back to Maryland for that. And unexpectedly, I was offered my old gig back in Greenbelt National Park for a month and a half in the best time of year to be there, May and June.

Maybe I can think of something to say or write to make a difference. It’s hard these days.

But anyway, see you down the MoJo Road. The California plan is still in play. But that is still months down the road. So like I sometimes say these days, see you down the dusty trail.

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