By Bill King
A couple of weeks after I graduated from college, Jean and I loaded up everything we owned and headed for New Orleans. Three years earlier, we had gotten married and moved to Birmingham. We moved to Birmingham in a Volkswagen van and a ’69 Malibu. We rented a U-Haul to move our belongings to New Orleans. I still don’t know why, because we didn’t own much more than three years earlier. I guess my friend’s van was not available!
My hometown of Rainsville and I grew up together. I was born in 1955, and Rainsville was incorporated the next year. Rainsville had 568 residents back then, but by the time I moved away 20 years later, we had somewhere around 3000. Today their population is almost twice that many. Even though my hometown was one of the fastest-growing small towns in Alabama when I moved away, it was still a far cry from the size of Birmingham. Living in Birmingham was quite an adjustment for this ole boy. Probably not as much for Jean because she had spent much of her childhood in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
After we arrived in New Orleans, I soon realized that I had never lived anywhere like that in my life. Truthfully, I’m not sure there is anywhere else like New Orleans. Had I not had those three years in Birmingham, the culture shock of New Orleans might have done me in! I quickly realized that we were not in Kansas anymore…I mean, Alabama anymore! I saw things I had never seen or heard of, and I ate stuff that we might have used for bait! I had moved there to further my education at the Baptist seminary. I received a wonderful education there and an unusual one in the city.
I missed my native Alabama so badly at times I could have cried. I may have when no one was watching. Not long after we moved there, I was sitting in church one Sunday morning when I thought I saw Mike Ramage, one of my college classmates. Before the service began, I tapped him on the shoulder, and my friend, who was a big man, almost squeezed the stuffings right out of me. We were both so glad to see someone we knew…someone from Alabama.
One of my first courses was Old Testament Survey, taught by Dr. Waylon Bailey. Dr. Bailey was from Alabama too…Brantley, to be exact. One day I was in the campus cafeteria when Dr. Bailey asked me if I’d like to sit with him. He was eating peanuts, so he offered me some. I realized his peanuts were boiled, like they ate in the southern end of Alabama, rather than roasted like we ate in the northern end. I liked them so much that I almost devoured the entire bag. Dr. Bailey became one of my favorite professors, and several years later, when I went to work on a doctorate, he was the chair of my committee.
For several years, Dr. Bailey taught at the seminary and served as pastor of Covington First Baptist Church. About the time I completed my doctorate in 1995, he left the seminary to serve full-time at the rapidly-growing church. Last week, I had the honor of doing one of my Brother Billy Bob humor programs for their Senior Adult Ministry. Unfortunately, Dr. Bailley had to be away that day and was not able to attend, but I did leave a gift for my former teacher and mentor. You guessed it…an entire bag of Alabama peanuts in the shell. If I lived closer, I’d go back, sit down with him, and help him eat them…boiled or roasted!
