Tag Archives: Tuscaloosa

Jul 20 2012
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Daily Post, Urban scene

The legacy of 27 April, 2011

Thursday 19th July 2012, 6.55pm (day 329)

Tornado legacy, 19/7/12

This is not a particularly ‘good’ photo in aesthetic or technical terms but it is the most meaningful picture I took today.

I said a few days ago that Tuscaloosa is not a very eventful place, and this is true generally, but an exception to the rule came on 27th April 2011 when it was hit by an utterly devastating tornado. 47 people died in the early evening of that day. I remember when I heard about it on the news, and the fact I had visited here previously and knew Angela (my research colleague) gave the disaster a personal dimension that it might not otherwise have had for many people. Angela, her husband, and their house, were all fine, but therein lies the scary nature of this particular natural phenomenon. Less than a third of a mile from her place – and we drove through these districts today as I went to dinner at her house – there were these scenes of total destruction, and I mean total. The narrow line that the storm took remains completely visible on the ground fifteen months later, marked by shattered trees and empty lots (like this one), even where houses literally on the other side of the street are OK.

What with my visit to New Orleans (still with visible signs of damage from Hurricane Katrina in 2005) and the Hebden Bridge floods I know I am developing a recurring ‘natural disaster’ theme here: but believe me, I don’t want to. I just have a sudden sense of the arbitrary power of these things. You can’t protest against it, can’t vote against it, can’t cancel it; it just happens, and it’s a terrible thing when it does. I’m not a particularly religious man but I guess this is why people sometimes feel the only response is just to pray.

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Jul 19 2012
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Daily Post, Interior

Working in Phil’s pub

Wednesday 18th July 2012, 2.35pm (day 328)

Phil's pub, 18/7/12

Free wi-fi. You gotta love it. A proper working lunch.

Had planned to get a photo of a fraternity house today, this being ‘Idiosyncracy part 2’ (see yesterday) but Tuscaloosa was having a dull and rainy day and the pictures I got were not very interesting. So I stopped myself from feeling constrained by my own plans and got this different side to campus life here at the University of Alabama. Phil is not a person, incidentally – apparently it is short for ‘Philibuster’s’.

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Jul 18 2012
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Daily Post, Urban scene

Idiosyncracies of the US university system, part 1

Tuesday 17th July 2012, 3.20pm (day 327)

Bryant-Denny stadium, 17/7/12

There have been significant developments at home in Hebden Bridge today but here is not the place to discuss them. You will doubtless hear more about it after I am back in the UK on Saturday.

Anyway, here in Tuscaloosa, I had to include a photo of the Bryant-Denny stadium, home of the Crimson Tide, the University of Alabama (American) football team. Those of us who are not from the US have this vague idea that college sports is somehow important here in a way it is not in most other countries, but largely we do not recognise the astonishing scale of it. To put it in perspective, the population of Tuscaloosa, AL, is about 90,000. The capacity of this stadium is over 101,000. If it were in the UK – or most other countries in the world – it would be the largest stadium in the country. The whole state of Alabama treats the Tide (national champions many times, and most recently in 2009 and 2011) as if they were not only their favoured sports team, but were part of their whole cultural identity, in a similar way to Barcelona for Catalans or Celtic for Irish/Scots Catholics. At times it feels as if the college were just something that existed to support the team, rather than the other way around. The coach is the single best-paid employee of the whole university, at around $7m/year. I understand why it happens, but the scale of it continues to amaze me, even after several years of visiting US campuses to work.

And yes, I do intend to do a ‘part 2’ to this post: tomorrow or Thursday, hopefully…

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Jul 17 2012
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Daily Post, Urban scene

Main quadrangle, University of Alabama

Monday 16th July 2012, 1.30pm (day 326)

University of Alabama, 16/7/12

Like many US universities, at least, those called ‘The University of X’ where X is the name of a state, the University of Alabama is located in a relatively small town, that being, Tuscaloosa. Tuscaloosa is not the most exciting place in the world (even compared to Hebden Bridge, let alone New Orleans), so expect to see a few shots of picturesque Southern architecture over the next few days, as there’s not a great deal to capture. This is the Denny Chimes tower, a bell-tower on the southern end of the main quadrangle. Although the university has been here since 1820, only four buildings on the campus are older than 1865, because in that year the campus was burnt to the ground by Unionist troops during the War Between the States (aka the American Civil War, but I’m in the South so let’s use their term for it).

I’m here to work with my colleague Angela Benson, whose position here, as a black female academic, is more impressive than one might initially think: astonishingly, segregation on the campus was only ended in 1963 – just six years before I was born! – and was achieved despite the personal opposition of George Wallace, the state governor at the time, who literally stood ‘in the schoolhouse door’ to protest the enrolment of the first two black students.

So now you know. But I do quite like it here even if it is not a very eventful place. At least it’s warm and sunny.

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