Fried Chicken and Sweet Home Alabama

It’s amazing how an aroma can conjure up such memories and insight. I decided to fry some chicken fingers the other night. I was home alone and knew I had to cook this chicken or it was going to spoil. When my oil was heated I dropped the chicken in and as it began to fry, I suddenly got memories of fried chicken night at my Granny’s. I remember walking in her door and getting a whiff of that fried chicken and suddenly all was well with the world. No one I ever knew or have known since could fry chicken like my Granny. We still joke that she could put that chicken in an iron skillet to fry and then go and sit and talk on the phone (she loved to talk on the phone) and we would think, “The chicken is going to burn!”; but it would be perfect! I feel I’m pretty good at it and my family and friends seem to enjoy it when I make it, but I’m not even going to fool myself into thinking I’m as good as my Granny. Mollie Mae was the BEST! And not just her fried chicken.

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So, as I said, frying chicken got me somewhat nostalgic. I was born and raised in a small town in South Alabama called Brewton. Actually, we all say we’re from Brewton if we’re talking to people from somewhere else, but if you grew up around there you know that there are actually two cities together—Brewton and East Brewton. The population of both combined is about 7000 people. The two towns are separated by Murder Creek, which swells with spring rains every few years and floods the downtown area of both cities. I grew up on the East Brewton side of the creek; which is also kind of important if you’re from there. Brewton has the city school and East Brewton the county school—which is where I graduated.

One of the things that are apparently (according to my daughters) interesting about Brewton is the train track that runs through town. Yes, there is a train track that runs basically from northeast to southwest right through the middle of town. When we were home recently we visited a cute shop in downtown Brewton called Antigones anyway, we walk out of the shop and there is the train rumbling and clacking its way through town. My oldest daughter immediately starts taking pictures; which in turn makes me take a picture. Now keep in mind we live near St. Louis, a fairly large city. We live in the suburbs in a town called St. Charles. My girls have every convenience available to them and there are no train tracks in the middle of town. But as we walked out of this shop and the train was passing through, I couldn’t help but think about my town, my hometown, and the simplicity of just a train passing through. And also how, when I lived there, I would have never taken a picture of that train.

Mind you, I lived on the other side of the tracks, and about the only time I thought about the train was when I had the bad luck for it to be coming through when I needed to be on the other side of where it was. For example, when I was across town and had a curfew I had to meet, the last thing I wanted to see was the train coming through town. And try and tell your parents you got caught by the train. Sure you did. I certainly didn’t think there was any simplicity to it back then.

I guess I never fully experienced the beauty and appreciated the simplicity of Brewton when I lived there. It was just the town I lived in. I also NEVER thought I would live anywhere else—much less a large city in the Midwest. Then we moved away 4 months after I had given birth to my first child, 22 years ago. It was hard, very hard. The first year I traveled back to Brewton every 3 months. I was so homesick, and each time I would go home I would drive to different parts of town to look around. Almost like I wanted to have a picture forever in my mind of how it was, so I could take it back to St. Louis with me. And each time I would fall more in love with the town I was born and raised in.

We’ve made a great life in St. Louis, and I really enjoy the people there, but there weren’t people in St. Louis like there were in Brewton. I could go to Walmart in the town we were living back in St. Louis and no one would talk to you. I could go to Walmart in Brewton and it would take 2 hours because you would see so many people you knew and had to talk to them all! And then there are the beautiful homes on Belleville Avenue. As a kid and a teenager and even as a young adult, these homes just represented where the rich people lived. But what I realize now is how much history belonged to those fine old homes, and only in the South do you see homes like these.

And then there’s the football. I mentioned earlier there are a county school and a city school. And there is probably no bigger rivalry in the state than between these two schools. I went to W. S Neal; the other school is T. R. Miller. It’s called the Battle of Murder Creek and it’s always the last football game of the season. I still take it as seriously today as I did when I was a cheerleader on the sideline cheering my team on. GO BIG BLUE! And then there are those other two schools. ROLL TIDE! (I just can’t say the other one.) It’s hard for people here to understand how serious football in the South truly is. Thankfully Mizzou is now in the SEC, so they’re getting there.

t’s amazing that when I lived in Brewton I just took everything for granted; like being able to be sitting on the white, beautiful, sandy beaches of the Gulf of Mexico within an hour after leaving my house. Fresh seafood anytime, fresh vegetables that most people from around here have never heard of, Golden Flake potato chips, Conecuh sausage, Whataburger, and this wonderful chicken sandwich they serve at Church’s chicken. Let’s just say the sauce is so yummy. I would say that life in Brewton was simple. And not simple in the sense of being less thoughtful or sophisticated (although that’s probably not a word folks in Brewton would use to describe themselves), but in the sense that its pace is more reasonable; its sense of itself is more down to earth, but life there is very full.

I love my hometown and I’m proud to say I’m from there. I love to tell the story that my husband and I have known each other since elementary school. Our Dad’s worked at the same paper mill for over 40 years. He played football and I cheered. He was one grade ahead of me. I cheered with his sister. And no we were not high school sweethearts. He went away to school and then to the army and after he was discharged he came back to that sweet little town of Brewton where I still lived and we fell in love. And there are many stories just like ours. Brewton is full of rich heritage and beauty. It’s filled with some of the most gracious, caring, giving, authentic people I’ve ever met—my granny being one of those. Y’all stop by sometime. You will fall in love too!