To coin a phrase from David Copperfield, “To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born (as I have been informed and believe) …” on a Monday at 9:52 pm at Druid City Hospital in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. I was not alone as I discovered, with a bit of “googling,” 305,000 babies were born that day in the year of our Lord when the dinosaurs were dying out and life forms were emerging from the murky seas. Noting the remarkable event of the day, each year my mother would inform me on the anniversary date of my birth that it was the hottest day of the year. And each year until her passing in 1998, she continued to call me on that day and tell me that it was the hottest day of the year, so I firmly attest to the fact that it was indeed hot on the day I was born.
At the time of my arrival, Druid City Hospital was temporarily located at Northington General Hospital, an Army hospital built during World War II. The hospital boasted state of the art surgical facilities and reconditioning techniques for the recovery of wounded soldiers, both notable qualifications for the birth of my mother’s fourth child. Following the war and after a mere three years of service, the Army abandoned the facilities and went rolling along to greater glories. Northington was declared surplus inventory by the US government and The University of Alabama filed a quitclaim deed gaining control of the 160-acre property. The hospital became known as Northington Campus with the army barracks being converted into student housing for the influx of veterans going to school on the GI Bill. Subsequently the buildings fell into neglect and were torn down and commercialism took over the property. In 1979, University Mall was built on the location, so basically I was born at the mall.
Not to let good old buildings go to waste, final destruction of the Northington property, including two old smoke stacks, were used by the movie industry in 1978 in the filming of the “classic” Burt Reynolds movie Hooper, a film about the last chance of a fading stunt car driver to prove his “motoring skills.” Several minutes of the final scene of the movie were filmed in Tuscaloosa as the smoke stacks were blown up providing the backdrop for good ole Burt to “skillfully motor” through falling debris. Tuscaloosa’s big movie scene remains but a footnote to the cinema industry archives as well it should have been buried; but it also acclaims our homegrown ability to blow up derelict rat-infested structures and make money at the same time. Give me a Roll Tide.
But back to me and my arrival on the great planet earth; my mama rejected me the first time she saw me, stating that I was not her baby, didn’t look like the others. She sent the nurse out of the room, baby in tow, who was immediately followed by the entrance of the doctor. With a questionable bedside delivery method, the doctor clearly stated; “I don’t know whose baby that is, but that’s the one you had last night.” My grandmother was guarding her daughter in the hospital room and with the wisdom and common sense that comes from living in the swampland of southern Mississippi, my grandmother said, “See there, I told you if you had your babies at home, this would not happen.” Faced with the difficult decision of rearing a blonde hair green-eyed baby ‘amongst’ the Cajuns, my mother threw caution to the wind and took me home with her. Hopefully, the other 304,999 babies, across the globe received as fair a compromise as I did.
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