Wednesday 3 February 2010

Tuesday 2nd February 2010 - A Sunny Day in Glasgow

          It's Groundhog Day today.  What it comes down to is it's a sensible day to start Spring (or, for my Australian viewers, Autumn).  The 21st of June is the Solstice, the day the Sun stops coming north, and starts going south again: it's sometimes called Midsummer's Day.  So Summer would start about six or seven weeks before that, which would, in turn, be the end of Spring (or, as I said, maybe Autumn).  So Spring would start thirteen weeks before that, which is now.  It's all based on Pagan feast days.
          Anyway, the Americans have come up with this rather quaint forecasting custom which involves what the groundhog does today.  If it wakes up from hibernation, comes out of its hole, and sees its shadow, it goes back in and sleeps for another six weeks. If, on the other hand, it doesn't, it doesn't.  Or, to put it another way, if you have to decide, without the aid of a groundhog: if it's sunny today, it's not going to get warm for six weeks.  If it's not, it is.  Of course, it's a very unreliable guide, but a good bit of fun.
 
          It being sunny today (nudge, nudge), I head off for a first look at Glasgow, Jefferson County, Alabama.  It is a small collection of houses, most not in the best of condition, a few actually derelect and abandoned.  Even the cemetery is not in the condition I have come to expect of America.  The church claims to be in Mount Olive.  There is a faded sign advertising "Glassgow (sic) Hill Octoberfest".
[n0906]         
 
          But it has the classic American appearance of having been "laid out": The roads are in a grid, and some are still called "Ist Ave" and "1st Street".
          When I cruise through Adamsville, on the other side of US 78, my eagle eye spots a library.  It is suitably staffed with grown-up ladies, who not only scramble to attention, they get on the phone and scramble an auxiliary squadron as well.  The library is suddenly full.  Documents are being thrust at me from all sides.
          It turns out that Adamsville was incorporated in 1901, and almost immediately fell into the hands of "the whiskey gangs" (whatever that might be).  By 1914, the Mayor was demanding that it be unincorporated.  And that Mayor was called Robert S Glasgow.  It was incorporated once again in 1953, and the first mayor, would you believe, was Robert S Glasgow Jr.  Somewhere or other, I saw the someone had bought some building lots from the elder Glasgow, so I'm going to hazard a guess he laid out a bit of town and it got called the "Glasgow Addition".
          So I now have a thesis to test when I go to the courthouse tomorrow.
 
          Later that night, I thought I would eat me some spare ribs.  But I couldn't.  First, they were too cold.  Then, when I could actually try them, they appeared to have been left out for some days to dry out thoroughly.  "Sorry", said the barman, "I'll take care of that".  And he did: it was simply excised from the bill.

No comments: