On Wednesday of this week I left San Antonio on a 7:30 a.m. flight to Birmingham, Alabama to begin an American Wesleyan pilgrimage of sorts. Upon arriving in Alabama I rented a car and headed east to Atlanta. (This was my first time in the beautiful state of Alabama. I felt like I was back in East Texas but with bigger hills. Southwest deviated from their published flight schedule and so I got into Alabama five hours early, which was a wonderful gift!) On the way to Atlanta I started seeing signs off I-20 for Talladega Superspeedway. I'm not much of a NASCAR fan (I've never been to a race and don't watch them on tv) but since my schedule was running so early I thought I'd take a detour and just drive by and checkout the scene. Little did I know, but this week is raceweek at Talladega. Even on Wednesday, there were RV's nearly as far as the eye could see. One could purchase t-shirts (3 for $10), bundles of firewood and, my personal favorite, a $5 shower! While I didn't actually get out of my car I felt like I got a decent taste of the NASCAR expereince (minus the actual cars). As I drove by the speedway this morning (Saturday) I could see the RV's parked all the way up to I-20. Perhaps the most striking view from the highway was of the many, many, many confederate flags flying over some of the RV's. Interestingly, they all seemed to be grouped in little pockets. I imagine this is intentional? Even as a Texan, I felt like a yankee!
I certainly don't mean to pass judgement on an entire American subculture but all of the "Rickey Bobby" stereotypes seemed to be nearly confirmed from the interstate...
Back to the main story...
As I arrived in Atlanta (East Atlanta, specifically) I stopped and stayed the evening with my friend Ryan Baer. Ryan is a seminarian at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, GA. (A Presbyterian school that is the home of Walter Brueggeman.) After an excellent Thai food dinner, we went back to East Lake and called it a day.
A quick aside: East Lake used to be known as Little Vietnam in the 70's and 80's. The area was very depressed economically and was home to many who were on the margins of society. As philanthropist in the late 80's, after attending a conference in a recently revitalized neighborhood decided to make East Lake his new project. While I'm sure there were many bumps along the way, it looks like a smashing sucsess (as most of the original residents still live their and the neighborhood has retained its original demographic makeup).
I wish I had a link to the history of this project for you to check out but I"m sad to say that I don't.
Check back for part II in a bit...
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