A few
attractions of note awaited my attention in Montgomery before I hit the road. First on my list, because it was open the earliest, was Hank Williams' grave. The King of Country Music is interred in an annex of Oakwood Cemetary; there's a marble sign at the entrance welcoming those pilgrims who have come to pay their respects. The monument itself is pretty impressive; there's a big slab of marble with cowboy boots and guitar etched into it, a stone cowboy hat and renderings of the sheet music from some of Hank's biggest hits carved into the stone, as well. A small retaining wall surrounds the gravesite and a couple of stone benches are there for those who choose to pause and reflect. The ground within this retaining wall is not stone- or perhaps grass-covered, as one would expect. It's covered with Astro-turf. Don't ask me why.I then visited the Montgomery Museum of Fine Art; not a bad collection for this relatively small burg. The permanent collection is comprised mostly, it seems, of American artists and featured a Georgia O'Keefe landscape and an Edward Hopper seaside scene. They also have, in the collection, another Hopper, entitled New York Office,but, much to my disappointment, it was on loan. Darn. There is also a space designed to bring art alive for children. It's a hands-on space called ArtWorks, with all sorts of exhibits and experiments and things to play with. It's very impressive; I had a lot of fun.
Leaving Montgomery, I made a point of heading west and north, up Tuscaloosa way. Not only because it's a vital element in a great joke in Animal Crackers(as the reknowned African explorer, Capt. Geoffrey T. Spaulding, Groucho remarks,"One morning, I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I don't know. Then we tried to remove the tusks, but they were imbedded so firmly that we couldn't budge them. Of course, in Alabama, the Tuscaloosa but that's entirely irr-elephant to what I was talking about..."), but because there is, in Tuscaloosa, a barbeque joint of great reknown called Dreamland. A number of people have recommended this establishment to me and it is widely praised in several travel books. I also am of the opinion that Dreamland is a great name for a restaurant, so I was quite excited about this pilgrimage.
I found the place, with some difficulty as it's not exactly on the main drag, and it looked enticing. It was now four in the afternoon, I hadn't eaten all day, having saved myself for this moment, and I was famished. I hastened to the front door and tried to turn the knob. It was locked! The sign in the window, which gave the hours of operation, stated that Dreamland was closed on Sundays and Mondays! Say it ain't so! I was terribly disappointed, to say the least. Had it been open on Monday, even, I might have waited around and lunched there but I couldn't justify waiting forty-eight hours for one meal, no matter how heavenly. Dreamland will have to wait until another day, dammit. So, it was a quick hamburger and fries at a drive-in and on to Meridian, Mississippi, birthplace of Jimmie Rodgers, the Father of Country Music and proud home of the Jimmie Rodgers Museum.
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