Someone once said to me, "Alabama is the great, big Rebel flag buckle on the Bible Belt." I have only come to appreciate that remark more and more over time, in stark contrast to the person who made the remark, whom I have come to appreciate less and less over time, and that is in part why she is and in part due to her being my "ex." An acceptable, backup categorization is to call Alabama "Darwin's Waiting Room."
By just about every standard of quality-of-living measurements, Alabama has, historically and consistently placed in the lowest rankings, compared to other states, giving rise to the thought and the saying which should replace what is written on the greeting signs at the state lines: Alabama: At Least We're Not Mississippi. Currently, the sign reads "Alabama the Beautiful," which easily prompts a Platonic debate about what constitutes "beauty," not to mention that it is reputed to be found (or not) in the eye of the beholder.
But this blog is not "about" Alabama. For my purposes, Alabama is just context, backdrop, setting, and props. Sure, it adds color to the tableau of my existential dilemma every time I go out in public to be met with herds of morbidly obese people who appear as if, at any moment, their hearts might literally explode from their chests, erupting in a short-lived geyser of blood and bone-fragments...that is why I wear safety glasses in my day-to-day life. Inarguably, one can never get enough of the lively debate over which school--Alabama or Auburn--has the better football team, especially when the debate is carried on by people who, more than likely, did not finish high school, in a state which can boast of illiteracy rates as high as forty percent in its rural, western counties.
No, Alabama is merely for me what the nine rings of hell are for Virgil and Dante--not that I am Virgil by any means, especially since a name like that is likely to get your ass kicked in this noble land of shirtless and drunken rednecks, flexing nuts and fisticuffs over the merest of slights. Likewise, I do not claim to be Dante, a name for which I am neither ethnically, nor residentially qualified, since I am neither of divorced, mixed parentage, nor live in subsidized housing, and before you start proclaiming your superior degree of progressive evolution by denouncing that line as racist , that sentence is only meant to reference the incredibly high levels of both divorce and poverty in the state, not that it's inherently bad to be named "Dante," be of mixed parentage, or to live in the lovely, prison-evoking gardens of pavement that are local, subsidized housing units in the predominantly African-American, western side of the town. I don't feel it necessary to be unwilling to acknowledge reality in order to qualify as being non-racist, but again I digress.
If Alabama is the "Heart of Dixie," then it is merely the beating heart of the creature against which I contend on a daily basis, no offense to Dixie and nothing personal intended. It has simply become a symbol to me, not completely unique in a nation that left and right, north and south seems to be crumbling, sinking ever further into decay, despair, and alienation, unless you're among the smallest percentage who control the majority of wealth in the nation, allowing the same to maintain a bubble of immunity against the doomsday asteroid of decline affecting the majority of Americans today.
So, as is my wont and uncontrollable fixation to do, since language and communication give meaning to my life, help to define my identity, and occasionally provide catharsis, even though more and more, I find myself in a soliloquy rather than in a dialog with anyone present to whatever degree in my life, I am starting a blog, becoming part of the blogosphere, a blog-meister, blog-a-logga-ding-dong. I'm certainly late in terms of joining the Age of Blogs. I don't expect to change my life or the life of any reader's for that matter. Think of this, at best, as the lengthy inscription on my grave-marker, my Tomblog, which can be read as "tomb log" or "tom blog," as anyone who works up enough interest in the same can see fit to do.
"Fiery the angels rose...deep thunder roll'd/Around their shores..."
The deep thunder has rolled around my shores for years now, maybe my entire life. I'm waiting on the angels...and probably bitching here and there about their taking their sweet, angelic time about showing up...
