More on our Sweet Home Alabama Tour…   Coming across the border from Georgia, we first stopped in Phenix City, Alabama.   This was once billed at “the most corrupt city in America.”   With the Army’s Ft. Benning nearby, soldiers regularly came to town here.   There were illegal gambling parlors all over, prostitution, taverns everywhere, mob influence…   At Patty’s 50s style diner here, one of the employees, Barbara, told me that in the mid-50s marshal law was declared in Phenix City, with federal troops descending on the town to shut down a lot of the illegal activity…   On the walls at Patty’s are old 45 records, pictures of Elvis Presley, James Dean, Marilyn Monroe…   And a whole wall dedicated to the Andy Griffith Show…   While in Phenix City, I gave a pro-life talk at St. Patrick’s Church.   I said that we’d just crossed the 50 million abortion mark in America and for this to end, pro-life people need to go to the streets and mount a dramatic, sustained protest — like the protests to end Segregation in the South.   While in Phenix, we met with Fr. Thom Weise who spent time with Mother Theresa and Dorothy Day (co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement).   He had an absolutely great sense of spirituality about him.   Fr. Thom gave us a tour of the town, including a stroll down a scenic river walk.   Fr. Thom, 74, road his push-scooter side-by-side with our son Jonathan along the walk…   The next day, I talked at Mother Mary’s School, an all Black elementary school in Phenix City.   The topic, again, was abortion.   Our daughter Sarah, 14, also talked to the students. She explained she had protested abortion all over the country.   She said she had prayed with others on the street, held protest signs, pleaded with mothers not to go into the clinic…   Sarah exhorted the students to consider doing similar things…   I then talked at an eighth grade class at St. Patrick’s School in Phenix City.   I asked the students:   “If you were president, what’s the first thing you’d do?”   One boy didn’t skip a beat, immediately saying:   “I’d end the war.”   I asked why.   “Because my father is over there.”   My heart fell as I looked at this kid…   After the school events, we got a tour of The Riverside Antique Mall, complete with the first Thunderbird model ever built (1955) and the last Thunderbird model ever built (1995).   Both were cherry red.   The antique mall also has the largest lunch box collection in the world — and I’m not making this up.   (It had just been featured on CNN’s Most Unusual Museums Show.)   These particular lunch pails primarily had scenes from movies and television shows.   The rarest was a metal lunch pail with Hop-a-Long Cassidy on it.   Cost: $600.   I decided to pass on that…   After the tour we headed south, stopping in Montgomery (see last entry), then it was on to Owassa where Jonathan and I passed out a flier to a man out watering flowers in his front yard there.   Unsolicited, he said he had an answer to gridlock in D.C.   “Throw everyone out and start over,” he offered…   Then it was further south to Evergreen, Alabama, where I put up a campaign flier at Piggly Wiggly Grocery Store.   (Ya gotta wonder why you would name a place where people were going to get there food: “piggly,” complete with a big graphic of a pig no less.   I mean what’s that going to do to the average shopper unconsciously?   Anyway… From here,, it was on to Atmore, Alabama, where we parked our camper for the evening in a dirt lot next to a Chevron station, amidst a few 18 wheelers.   It was late.   And after we got the kids to bed, I went into a small restaurant at the station to do some writing.   My table was right below a wall hanging that read:   You might be a redneck racing fan if:   1)   Your drive to the race track takes longer than the race.   2)   You can change a tire faster than you can change a diaper.   3)   You get in and out of your car through the driver’s window. (Incidentally, this is how I get in our campaign vehicle.)