Transcript
From Dusk to Dawn is a podcast and produced to be heard. The way we speak and the way we write are often very different, so this transcript has been edited for clarity. There may be slight differences between it and the audio version. If you notice any misspellings or errors with names, people or places, please shoot us an email at [email protected].
Josie Shaw
Welcome to today’s episode of From Dusk to Dawn, where we shine a light on what we do at The Sunrise News. I’m Josie Shaw, the digital media and marketing specialist for The Sunrise News.
Harrison Neville
And I’m Harrison Neville, the editor in chief for The Sunrise News. Today we are talking with Wesley Miller. He’s the writer for our travel column, The Alabama Ramble. For Wesley, writing about Alabama highlights his love of the unique parts of our state.
Josie Shaw
We talked with him about his recent trips to Wetumpka, Alabama. He viewed some amazing art galleries, sampled delicious local cuisine and learned more about the history of Alabama. The good and the bad.
Harrison Neville
We hope you enjoy listening.
Josie Shaw
So Harrison, being in the south…your grandmother’s and your great grandmother’s and your whole family has all these weird sayings, right? Have you heard [this] one of them? Like, it’s raining chickens and ducks.
Harrison Neville
Okay.
Josie Shaw
Well, you know, do you know, what that really means is they’re saying that there’s going to be fowl weather. With a W. Ya know?
Harrison Neville
No, no, I got it. Fowl weather weather with a W. Yeah, that was bad.
Josie Shaw
Well, look, I’m trying my best here. I’m bombing. But look, today we’re here to interview Wesley, the writer of The Alabama Ramble. And would you go and just introduce to our audience who you are and what you do at Sunrise?
Wesley Miller
Sure. As you said, my name is Wesley. I’m Wesley Miller and I am a former teacher and assistant principal, turn stay at home dad. Now I write a column where I travel around the state. Its called the Alabama Ramble…I would say I’m from Alabama — I’m from a lot of places, but I’ve lived all over the country. And I’ve noticed a lot of people who don’t live in Alabama, tend to not think very much of it. Or people who have never been here think Alabama is very flat, they think it’s unattractive; they think it’s still the 1950s. And I moved back here a few years ago, once we had a kid and traveled the state a good bit since then. And I’ve just been consistently impressed by how pretty Alabama is, by the stories [and] by how much there is to do.
And so I started the column as a way to sing Alabama’s praises. I want us to — I by no means think we do everything perfectly in Alabama, there’s plenty of room for improvement — but I do think it’s a wonderful place. And there are a lot of stories to be told and a lot of things to do.
So, I’m less interested, though, in proselytizing to people who don’t live in Alabama, because we all know about everyone leaving California and New York or wherever, and supposedly ruining places like Nashville. And I don’t want that to happen. But I do think that there’s a lot for us here, Alabamians, that we should take pride in. So I want to showcase that.
Josie Shaw
Yeah, and you say you’ve been to all these different states and you’re writing concentrated in Alabama right now, what are some of those things you’ve noticed that you take pride in and Alabama? What are those things you’ve noticed that are congruent and important to our state?
Wesley Miller
There are a few different things. I think one category that immediately comes to mind is the natural beauty of Alabama. You know, I said before, I think a lot of people think of Alabama as flat. Alabama is gorgeous. I mean, I think there’s a lot of — there’s beauty to different areas, there’s a beauty to the black belt, there’s beauty to the coast, there’s beauty to the mountains, the hills, the rolling hills. I think there’s a lot of beauty here. I also think very few people know that we’re the number one state for biodiversity in the country. There’s a lot to protect, a lot we should know about and take pride in. And I think there’s also the people.
I mean, obviously we have a checkered history, you know, with the civil rights, and, you know, the whole Civil War thing and so on. But, you know, and Harrison and I have talked about this before, but …I don’t think that story can be told, either without talking about the bravery of the people here. And the things that people here have endured and gone through to bring about change. And so I think there’s pride that needs to be taken in that as well. And I guess I don’t know the appropriate expression, I suppose. But I don’t know. People run deep, schools run deep, stories run deep. So I’d like to share that as well.
Josie Shaw
Well, and as a writer, how do you translate those deep stories and beautiful biodiversity into writing? How do you do that?
Wesley Miller
I think it’s step by step. I think you can. I think some people have already tackled it. There’s a book and a PBS documentary, if anyone’s listening and has not heard of it, it’s called America’s Amazon, I think. I almost feel like it should be required viewing for every Alabamian, required reading…So there are people who are making the effort to tackle, you know, the larger story, and I think that’s great. But I’m more interested in focusing on [when] I go to one place and I say, okay, like, what are the what are the stories here?
So, you know, how did these things play out at a local level? Like when we went to Wetumpka. I can talk a lot, I won’t, but I could talk a lot about the issues with the damming of Alabama’s rivers, and the reduction of biodiversity that’s caused, and it’s a whole complicated issue. And I think solutions are also very complicated. I’m not implying anything. But I went to Wetumpka [and] the town has the Snail Trail, which is a snail there that was going to go extinct when they dammed the river. And so when we’re down in Wetumpka, the town has kind of taken the story of this little snail that was gonna go extinct until they opened up the dam even more to let more river water flow down the Coosa. They’ve kind of taken that as one of the central stories of the town, and it’s quirky, it’s, you know, it’s also thoughtful, and it’s a compelling little story that tells a greater story.
Harrison Neville
Well, since you’re talking about Wetumpka, and I also remember the snail statue as one of my favorite things there [and] just how excited some of the people were and proud of that snail statue. Somewhere we talked to, I can’t remember who, I remember having a conversation with someone there —
Wesley Miller
— the snail that saved the town, was that the expression?
Harrison Neville
Yeah, that was what they said. The snail that saved the town. And they were clearly really proud of that.
Wesley Miller
So the final part of that is that once they opened up the dam to save the snail and allow more water down — just to clarify what’s called the snail that saved the town — once they allowed more water to flow, then it brought in kayaking tourism, which helped provide the economy.
Harrison Neville
Right, but sort of going off that with Wetumpka. We did want to ask you specifically about your time in Wetumpka, a little bit. So do you have any favorite, in particular, memories that stand out just about that particular visit, like anything, any conversation, any one person you talk to, that really just sticks in your mind?
Wesley Miller
It’s gonna feel like a cop out, and I’m sure I can pick a specific example, but this goes back to what I was talking about with the people in Alabama. Everyone in Wetumpka was so — I think Harrison can attest to this, because he was there [on] two of my three visits — everyone was so welcoming. And I guess on one level, I expected it. But on another, I really didn’t. It was just, I don’t know, just a little — I don’t know what the word is — humbled, just by how welcoming the town was, whether it was the Chamber of Commerce, business owners, [or] the different people we talked to. And it makes you feel a degree of responsibility for presenting places and telling their stories accurately and in a way that they’d be proud of.
But I think if I had to pick one place, it would probably be the Black History Museum…This is spelled out in more detail in the column on Wetumpka, so I won’t get into it too much now, but there’s an old school that is of serious historical significance that was discontinued once integration became law. That was in 1963, I think it was discontinued. The lady who showed us around, went to that school back then. And she has been working for two decades plus to protect and collect a lot of memorabilia, relics — I don’t know what the right word is — from the way she lived at the time; how Black people have lived since. And you can really get a firsthand glimpse into what it was like in, I guess, a segregated Elmore County, and afterwards, and, you know, during the Jim Crow era. And she’s worked for 22 years, without pay, just as a volunteer to preserve this building and preserve the stories. And I think at the beginning of this year, she finally took a salary. But that’s a lot of dedication to preserving history and telling a story. So I would say that’s the most memorable,
Harrison Neville
I probably would have to agree with you, like going there was just an amazing experience, like talking to all the ladies there. Because for anyone who hasn’t read the column, once again, I won’t also won’t dive into it because you can read the column and you should, but there’s a whole quilting group that meets in the Black history museum there. And just getting to talk to all of them and hear some of their stories was just really cool I thought. I really enjoyed that part of our time there.
Wesley Miller
And you meet people like — her name was Miss Billie, the lady that showed us around and went to school there, and there’s other people that I’ve met that I felt the same way about — that have dedicated their lives to something that is greater than them, and so much of their free time. You spend time talking to these people, and I at least think, gosh, what am I doing with my life? It’s incredible, and sort of a call to action, I guess. But it’s something to behold.
Josie Shaw
Is there anything interesting that you found in these towns that you have not been able to include in the Ramble that you’d like to mention? Whether that be like, people you meet, things you experienced, but also emotions, you feel like what’s missing?
Wesley Miller
Anything come to mind for you, Harrison? You know, sometimes you have to cut a little bit for content. You know, there’s probably some stuff I did spend more time on that I’d like to [include], although being underspoken is not one of my shortcomings, I suppose.
Harrison Neville
I’ve got about one. So when we were in Wetumpka, there’s this bridge, you’ll see pictures of it —
Wesley Miller
Bibb Graves Bridge.
Harrison Neville
Yes. The Bibb Graves bridge. So you’ll see pictures in the article. We spent maybe what, 15-20 minutes on top of that bridge, taking photos?
Wesley Miller
It was so hot.
Harrison Neville
It was horrible.
Wesley Miller
It was July, it was like 9:30, it was already awful.
Harrison Neville
Oh, yeah, we were melting out there. But while we were out on that bridge. We just kept taking photos. Because there were some particular shots we wanted to get. Some of it was, you can kind of see where the meteor — there’s a meteor that struck the Wetumpka area
Wesley Miller
Eighty-million years ago.
Harrison Neville
Yeah, a long time ago. It’s been a while. You can see where it struck. And you can see like, the, the way the rocks, you know —
Wesley Miller
— they’re angled. From the impact of the Meteor.
Harrison Neville
Right, and you can see that, and we got some decent pictures of that. But we also were trying to — there’s a lot we were trying to capture there. Like I don’t know if you remember we took tons of photos, several which involved Wesley standing in the middle of the road, while cars would come by and I’d be like, “Hey, you should move there’s, there’s a car coming.”
And then he’d move and then go back out in the middle of the street. But in all of that, I don’t think we used many of those photos, because we just, we couldn’t really get what we were going for. And yeah, I wish we could bottle that sensation. Because, that bridge, despite the weather, I found that a really kind of enjoyable experience.
Also, sidebar: Wesley going in the street during Rambles is very common. Like he’ll run out in the middle of the road. I was talking to — on another Ramble — I was talking to someone who was walking us through town — you’ll get to read that one in the future. But I was talking to this wonderful gentleman who’s walking us through town. And I was like, yeah, so normally my position here is to stand on the sidewalk and make sure Wesley doesn’t get hit by cars while he runs out into the middle of traffic. He’s like, “Oh, yeah, that’s really important.” But anyways, so that’s probably my favorite kind of thing that we couldn’t quite include.
Wesley Miller
I would add too while we were there, I visited three times, and I did not get enough time to go to … a couple of hiking trails there. And I like to document some of the outdoors too. It’s called Jordans Journeys by Jordan Dam, I think that’s what it’s called? So they’re there. And swayback bridge trails, the other one right there. And maybe they’re part of the same. I’m not fully clear on it. But it looked really pretty. I did not get to make it. So I guess I would have that.
Josie Shaw
Well. I want to wrap up our conversation with the question. What do you hope people take away after reading your stories in your articles?
Wesley Miller
A[n] appreciation, gratitude, joy in where we live? I don’t know. I mean, I’m older than you all. I don’t know. I know when I was back in college — maybe people don’t feel this way anymore, I know Birmingham’s gotten cooler… — back then Birmingham was not cool. Everyone just wanted to go to Atlanta. And, I’m sorry for anyone who’s from Atlanta who takes this personally, I think Atlanta is miserable. There are some nice places in Atlanta. I’m not disputing that. I think there are lots of nice places in Georgia. I think the city is just too big for me.
I think I just remember being younger, and like everyone wanted to get away. And I don’t know if — y’all can tell me I don’t know how much young people still feel that, you know? I’m 39 now. I think it’s maybe easy not to appreciate how wonderful and how unique of a place, you know, that we all have here. And then part of that is, there’s a lot that needs to be done to protect it.
And then finally, I would say, have some adventures. As I said, there’s a lot here, there’s a lot to see, there’s a lot to do. I know it takes money, it takes time. I know those can be in short supply. But if you are able to get out and see stuff… I try to write this so that [if] “Hey, do you want to go here?” Here’s the person to talk to, this is who we met, you can go in, she’ll show you around just like she did us get out there and explore and see some of that for yourself. It’s worth it.
Harrison Neville
I agree. As someone who loves to hike and travel. I agree. I love Alabama. So there is that. As to your question about how young people feel. I don’t know how young all young people feel. I love living here. And this is my home and I love it.
Wesley Miller
Do you all feel like there was — I mean, if you need to cut this out or whatever…you can, this doesn’t need to be included. I’m wondering, do you all feel like people now, does everyone just feel like “Oh, I just want to get out?” Or do people — are there more people who are like, nah, it’s all right here?
Josie Shaw
I think that’s the mentality of a lot of people in high school. I saw at least for me, once I got to college and I had more power over my life than I have the choice of like, oh, I should actually stay here and make a change. And I love it here. It’s my home. But there’s definitely still people who are like, I want to leave. But I found a lot of people want to kind of like reclaim whatever the south used to mean to them into a new version.
Wesley Miller
But everyone in high school hates everything, right? Not to like, overstate it, but it’s also true. So, yeah, maybe it’s changing some. Anyway, thanks, y’all.
Josie Shaw
No, thank you for chatting with us. Hopefully we’ll talk more soon.
We hope you enjoyed today’s episode.
Harrison Neville
If you’d like to get local Alabama news, check out our website and join our weekly newsletter.
Josie Shaw
Follow us on social media to keep up with updates about the podcast.
Harrison Neville
Thanks for listening. We’ll see you soon.
