Saturday 20th February 2010 - That's a Very Interesting Question

          It has been noted that all the land round this Glasgow appears to have changed hands between 1935 and 1997.  But if you think about it, it's not really surprising.  The first is at the end of the Great Depression, and the other is at the start of the madness which produced this latest recession.  And there was a lot of history in between, especially in this part of the world.

          I have never, during this trip, imagined myself as some academic historical researcher, not even at an amateur level.  This was, and is, a pleasure trip, the main pleasure being in discovery.  If I bring anything at all to the party, it's a modest gift for analysis.  There will be no careful uncovering of fact through painstaking research, more a jumping to conclusions.

          So, in that spirit, let's start by having a look at what most reasonably-educated people might know of both times.  In 1935, that great socialist creation, the Tennessee Valley Authority was two years old.  It had been brought into being to rescue Tennessee and Northern Alabama from a long period where the over-exploitation of the land was matched only by its under-husbandry.  It is easy to guess that things were even worse here in Lower Alabama.  It is easy to imagine that land-owners here had been waiting desparately for years, if not decades, to sell up and get out.  Inheriting land here must have been like acquiring the proverbial White Elephant, not to mention the poisoned history on its back

          Fast-forward to 1997, and we find ourselves in a world where, if the land itself was not valuable, betting on its value was valuable, and betting on the value of the betting slips was even more valuable.  Remember also the farmer I met in West Tennessee, outraged that one of his neighbours had bought the land because doing nothing with it earned him $50 an acre.

          Then there was the lady I met the other night whose husband was working nightshift in the Hyundai plant, who was proud to tell me that they had bought sixteen acres "and a pond".  So, in 2010, Alabamians work in car factories in order to buy land for recreational purposes.  That process must have been well under way fifteen years ago.

 

          You'll have gathered from all this that I didn't really do anything today.  I went down the library, and read a bit of history.  But I only got as far as the aftermath of the Civil War.  It was very depressing.

          But black and white seem to get on quite amicably now, although I'm sure it's not that simple.

 

          As a footnote,  the weather here is like a summer's day in Britain.  But it seems odd, because all the trees are bare.  Of course, I'm now much nearer the equator that I've ever been before.  In European terms, I'm now in Africa, if you see what I mean: somewhere about Marrakesh.