{"id":1010,"date":"2010-04-18T04:34:01","date_gmt":"2010-04-18T04:34:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/voteforjoe.com\/wheresjoe\/?p=448"},"modified":"2010-04-18T04:34:01","modified_gmt":"2010-04-18T04:34:01","slug":"sweet-home-alabama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/?p=1010","title":{"rendered":"Sweet home Alabama…"},"content":{"rendered":"

More on our Sweet Home Alabama Tour…<\/em> \u00a0 Coming across the border from Georgia, we first stopped in Phenix City, Alabama. \u00a0 This was once billed at “the most corrupt city in America.” \u00a0 With the Army’s Ft. Benning nearby, soldiers regularly came to town here. \u00a0 There were illegal gambling parlors all over, prostitution, taverns everywhere, mob influence… \u00a0 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… \u00a0 On the walls at Patty’s are old 45 records, pictures of Elvis Presley, James Dean, Marilyn Monroe… \u00a0 And a whole wall dedicated to the Andy Griffith Show…<\/em> \u00a0 While in Phenix City, I gave a pro-life talk at St. Patrick’s Church. \u00a0 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. \u00a0 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). \u00a0 He had an absolutely great sense of spirituality about him. \u00a0 Fr. Thom gave us a tour of the town, <\/em>including a stroll down a scenic river walk. \u00a0 <\/em>Fr. Thom, 74, road his<\/em> push-scooter side-by-side with our son Jonathan along the walk… \u00a0 <\/em>The next day, I talked at Mother Mary’s School<\/em>, an all Black elementary school in Phenix City. \u00a0 <\/em>The topic, again, was abortion. \u00a0 Our daughter Sarah, 14, also talked to the students. She explained she had protested abortion all over the country. \u00a0 She said she had prayed with others on the street, held protest signs, pleaded with mothers not to go into the clinic… \u00a0 Sarah exhorted the students to consider doing similar things… \u00a0 I then talked at an eighth grade class at St. Patrick’s School in Phenix City. \u00a0 I asked the students: \u00a0 “If you were president, what’s the first thing you’d do?” \u00a0 One boy didn’t skip a beat, immediately saying: \u00a0 “I’d end the war.” \u00a0 I asked why. \u00a0 “Because my father is over there.” \u00a0 My heart fell as I looked at this kid… \u00a0 After the school events, we got a tour of The Riverside Antique Mall<\/em>, complete with the first Thunderbird model ever built (1955) and the last Thunderbird <\/em>model ever built (1995). \u00a0 Both were cherry red. \u00a0 The antique mall also has the largest lunch box collection in the world — and I’m not making this up. \u00a0 (It had just been featured on CNN’s Most Unusual Museums Show<\/em>.) \u00a0 These particular lunch pails primarily had scenes from movies and television shows. \u00a0 The rarest was a metal lunch pail with Hop-a-Long Cassidy<\/em> on it. \u00a0 Cost: $600. \u00a0 I decided to pass on that… \u00a0 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. \u00a0 Unsolicited, he said he had an answer to gridlock in D.C. \u00a0 “Throw everyone out and start over,” he offered… \u00a0 Then it was further south to Evergreen, Alabama, where I put up a campaign flier at Piggly Wiggly Grocery Store. \u00a0 (Ya gotta wonder why you would name a place where people were going to get there food: “piggly,” complete with a big<\/em> graphic of a pig no less. \u00a0 I mean what’s that going to do to the average shopper unconsciously? \u00a0 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. \u00a0 It was late. \u00a0 And after we got the kids to bed, I went into a small restaurant at the station to do some writing. \u00a0 My table was right below a wall hanging that read: \u00a0 You might be a redneck racing fan if:<\/em><\/strong> \u00a0 1) \u00a0 Your drive to the race track takes longer than the race. \u00a0 2) \u00a0 You can change a tire faster than you can change a diaper. \u00a0 3) \u00a0 You get in and out of your car through the driver’s window. (Incidentally, this is how I get in our campaign vehicle.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

More on our Sweet Home Alabama Tour… \u00a0 Coming across the border from Georgia, we first stopped in Phenix City, Alabama. \u00a0 This was once billed at “the most corrupt city in America.” \u00a0 With the Army’s Ft. Benning nearby, …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1010"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1010\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}