Tears and Laughter: Roses in December
One of the busier spots on Main Street in downtown Atmore seems to be the We Care Thrift Store. It is situated a few closed doors down from the Alabama Wing House – a chicken joint located in the old Whistle Stop Grill. It sits on the corner at Highway 31, adjacent to the railroad tracks.
As with many dilapidated downtown districts trying to revive across rural Alabama, the faces of the buildings that remain speak to traffic as it passes by or backs up waiting to move on at red lights.
The marquee of the Strand Theater still invites, as if something exciting will be happening behind a curtain just beyond its entry come Friday night…for the price of a ticket. But the show has long been over. The only song now is the sound of engines and car horns, interrupted from time to time by the whistle of a train.
Atmore hugs the Florida line. It is also the home of the William C. Holman Correctional Facility. Some people will tell you, half in jest, that there are two prisons in Atmore – and that you can get a Wind Creek player’s card at one of them.
Sometimes in passing by one to get to the other at the required speed limit of 45 miles per hour, the men will be outside on the red dirt yard worn bare from unyielding use. At such distance, in their white uniforms, they look like a team.
The last time I passed, I noticed roses blooming on the bushes along the fences surrounding the red dirt. Roses in December…because it is so close to Florida air I suppose. But for a long time, I only noticed the glimmer of the razor wire in the midday sun and the watchtower. All I saw was Holman Prison.
A gentle-voiced woman at the State Line Gift Shop told me about how behind the glass counter at the We Care store they sell copies of a Mennonite Home-Cooked Favorites cookbook. “Two hundred and fifty six pages,” she said, “for $7.50.”
Cookbooks…are a weakness of mine. I got it from my mother, who got it from hers. So on my way back home, I parallel parked and hurried across Main Street. The We Care storefront blinked with a hesitant certainty that Christmas is coming.
Waiting in line for the books, I watched two small children playing contently around their mother’s legs as she stood putting her finds on the glass countertop and paying. The little girl clutched a stuffed dog under her left arm. Behind her, the children’s grandmother waited in an oversized chair. She watched them play too. She grinned, like their laughter was glitter thrown in the air.
A recording through the overhead speaker reminded shoppers between Christmas songs that sales support their similarly named, We Care Prison Ministry. It reminded me of the roses.
Inside the old department store display, beside a row of dainty silver-toned watches that had stopped in some other time, were two stacks of Mennonite cookbooks.
Thirty miles out, with darkness shadowing, I kept thinking back. I understood it was just the watches that had stopped…it only felt like a time warp.
Amanda Walker is a columnist with The West Alabama Watchman, Al.com, The Thomasville Times, and The Wilcox Progressive Era. For more information, visit her on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/AmandaWalker.Columnist.