The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1919-09-21

which-whatever it's sometime mishaps
has always in the long run proven to
have been in the right. must not use
that favorite expression of mine, for,
a Tom Reed told me, "a tragedy is not
supposed to be amusing"
I remember his laugh. He had
wholesome laugh. 1t tubbled up from
away back in his interior, it was good
to listen to. / reckon he learned to
laugh that way while he was teaching
school in the Sierrias of California.
Don't say" he said, sit amuses you"
Say that it intrigues you"
So ] will not say, after spending
two weeks in city which I have
learned to love which no normal man can
not wish to make his home-and have
lived in some of the garden spots of
the world-that Decatur, Ala, and its
overgrown child, Albany, are amusing
I can but record the fact that of all
my happen chances this has been the
most intriguing of my life.
Just imagine for a moment. Every
| one has heard the song, Way Down IN
Tennessee" I heard Canuck men and
| women who never had seen Tennessee
bawling that good old song with real
, tears in their eyes when / was teaching
| school in the territory of Dakota near
| the Canadian line when ] was young
| and life was good. am Louislanlan'
| and Tennessee-although l was furtner
north at the time-sounded like nortn
to a Pelican, yet then I sensed some
thing of the attraction of the Tennes-
see valley through the rapt eyes ana
| longing voices of those hard-bitten
| children of the far north who were
| demonstrating, fighting prairie fires,
! early frosts 40 below for months In
| winter thanking God for their oppor-
, tunity to conquer the west and rear
| ing thee children who in the last Few
| wears have helped show the Hun the
| folly of his ways.
The Tennessee valley, the best part
! Of 1t in Alabama! who has not read
| of 1t? Who does not love the music OF
its name? How many, even among us
| own jewellers know it's notent 'aitles!
twice in my life 1 passed through
/ IL at night on troop train when Mark
| Hanna was actual President OF the
United States, and southern volunteers
were not even markers for the dom
! inoes in his game.
AFTER TWO WEEKS
Now Ahave spent two weeks in the
heart of It and I can understRd VIVA,
we fly-fighters of Chickamauga heard
the negro roustabouts sing at the
| steamboat landing at Chattanooga one
day in '9S:
"Oh, chile, whar is yo gwine?
| rs gwine down the Tennessee
! rs gwine down ter dat Decatur,
4 Whar the city's gwine ter be"
4 Where the city is going to be.
/ In the earliest days of the trek from
| the Atlantic seaboard there were men
/ cabined where Decatur now sits serene
! vet anioxus; anxious as a mother is who
] sits up late of night and listens for the
/ fo otstaps of her son and wonders why
he does not be at home in the evenings
Il as he did when he was child TO
/ hearken and lend his advice to her
plans to make their future secure.
Serene and beautiful, not the lowell
ness Of hectic youth. but the gracious
beauty of middle age, Decatur dwells
on the southern bank of the Tennessee
river and watches her child grow, hei
child whom she named New Decatur
and who, in a fit of peevishness
changed his name two years ago ane
is now known as Albany.
Decatur and Albany. Why?
| Ever since the Noneer first pushed
out into the beyond. there has always
been settlement at the site which IL
now named Decatur, for it Is the stra-