Cullman Good Life Magazine - Summer 2019

CULLMAN COUNTY

Jacob Fisher finds his loft home and living downtown a perfect fit

Ray Buchmann says the first time he took Benton fishing, she was hooked SUMMER 2019 | COMPLIMENTARY

Beth Anderson owned restaurants ... THEN she went to culinary school

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Grandma Augusta taught Deb how to fry green tomatoes – lucky you.

Taste the love, taste the ‘depth’ – you won’t stop at two bites

Fish tacos are back because mangoes for the salsa are coming into season. Order them with regular soft shells, right, or deep-fried shell for a delicious crispness, left.

Open for lunch, dinner and drinks Tuesday-Saturday

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Been to Augusta’s Sports Grill? Then you’ve noticed how good and fresh the food looks, tastes and smells. But have you ever wondered what really sets Augusta’s apart from the crowd?

True, Deb Veres, sons Josh and Jason and the others cook with love. But there’s something else to the food. A depth, if you will.

It helps to understand just how deeply Deb – figuratively speaking – is actually in the food. So, chew on this …

Augusta’s sits mere blocks from the apartments where her Great-grandpa Fred Lessman once had a farm. Growing up, little “Debbie” picked apples, peaches and cherries from his huge orchards.

Grandpa Otto Edward Christiansen and Grandmother Mary Sophia Augusta (yep, that’s her) Lessman Christiansen had a farm where Tractor Supply now stands.

Using fruit from Fred’s orchard, Mary Sophia taught Debbie how to make jelly.

“When I was 4 or 5, sitting on the kitchen table helping her, I fell and broke my collarbone,” Deb laughs. “Later, I broke my wrist from skating then my elbow when I was thrown from horse.”

A frugal German, Otto insisted that Debbie eat two bites of everything on her plate, like it or not.

“I learned you could cover up the taste of black-eyed peas and eggs with ketchup, but I have gotten better at ‘covering up,’” Deb says.

“My husband loves fish, but I don’t care much for it. So for cooking fish at home, I figured out a mango salsa for it to suite my taste.”

It just happens everybody else loves the mango salsa, too. So today when you order fish Green beans are seeped tacos at Augusta’s, you get the salsa everyone in family tradition. loves.

Otto banned Debbie from picking green beans – they grew 1,000 yards from Augusta’s – until she learned not to break the vines, thus enabling a second crop.

“Grandma taught me to cook green beans,” Deb says of her popular side dish.

“The secret is cooking them slow with bacon and bacon grease, salt, a tad of sugar and lots of love.”

Otto grew so many tomatoes that when they came in Grandma shared with hobos by the train tracks. She taught Debbie to fry them green in a cast iron skillet.

They’re also popular at Augusta’s, only they’re deep-fried to meet the demand.

“These are the kind of things you grow up with that become a part of you. You pass them on, and they go from generation to generation.

“You know something funny?” Deb adds. “I made my kids eat two bites, too.”

Which is something she’s never had to tell a customer.

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256-775-9445

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Welcome

Cullman County Good Life – a tapestry six years in the weaving

T

his issue ends our sixth year for Cullman County Good Life Magazine.

OK ... compared to the dinosaurs and pyramids, that’s not long. But it’s long enough to have woven a tapestry of connections with lots of folks in Cullman County, a tapestry that became intriguingly interesting as I worked on stories for this issue.

Our Good People feature is on Cullman Regional Medical Center CEO James Clements and the hospital’s financial turnaround. Thanks to Lindsey Dossey – CRMC marketing director who lined up the interview – the hospital was among the frighteningly small smattering of advertisers in our first issue in fall 2013. I told James that appreciated ad is what really began the hospital’s turnaround.

Beth Anderson – a hospital board member and this issue’s guest chef – suggested James. Beth and I have newspaper backgrounds. I was again reminded of that background when I called Amanda Shavers at The Cullman Times to ask if we could run a photo she shot in 1998 of the late Margaret Jean Jones, another feature in this issue. Thanks to the Times.

In 2014, while trail riding at Stony Lonesome, I flipped an ATV. I was seeking another off-road adventure when I went riding recently with Ralph Basch and sons. We had no real adventure that day, but the family story that emerged made up for it.

Doing a fishing story on Ray and Benton Buchmann for this issue brought up All Steak Restaurant, reminding me of stories I’ve done on both Matt Heim and Dyron Powell. Our current Good Eats feature is on Grumpy’s. I first met Jennifer and Tyler when I did a recipe story on his mom, First Lady Connie Jacobs, in 2017.

That same issue featured Libby Crider and her house. She’s the one who suggested Beth Anderson as a story. Libby also suggested a story on Jacob Fisher and his loft home.

Standing on Jacob’s downtown porch in April, I saw Lee and Ginger Powell’s building across the way. We featured their loft in the first stitch of this tapestry, published ages ago.

Mo Mc PUBLISHING LLC

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Contributors Deb Laslie at Deb’s Bookstore isn’t a big fan of vacations. Beach? Too sandy. Mountains? Too far away. “I love being at home with my husband, my dawgs. Sitting in the swing on my screened-in porch, watching birds with a great book and a glass of sweet tea is near enough vacation for me.”

Seth Terrell writes about Ainsley Irani, 14, and her barrel -racing championship. He got caught up in the story and plans to take his and Crystal’s two girls to see her ride. “My dad owned horses his whole life,” he says. “I just wanted to be a cowboy.”

Ainsley would give him a run for his money.

During the 13 years that Steve Maze published and edited Yesterday’s Memories he interviewed countless movie stars, famous musicians and entertainers and professional athletes. “None inspired me more than Margaret Jean Jones.” He writes about meeting her in this issue.

David Myers and his wife, Rose, team up to write Good Eats columns for GLM. A NASA contractor, in his spare time when David is not sampling fare at area restaurants, he’s at work on his sixth novel. This one will be set in his hometown, New Orleans, and is expected out later this year.

Advertising/art director Sheila McAnear is looking forward to summer activities ... getting her boat in the water, paddling her kayak. But first things first.

She can’t do any of that fun stuff until she gets off the trampoline she’s bouncing on while juggling all of her ad work ... work she says she’s thrilled to have!

After high school 49 years ago, GLM editor/ publisher David Moore wanted to be a psychologist. After earning a psych degree 45 years ago from The University of Alabama, he knew that’s NOT for him. Six years after starting GLM, he’s found his niche, probably.

David F. Moore Publisher/editor | 256-293-0888 david.goodlifemagazine@gmail.com

Vol. 6 No.4 Copyright 2019 Published quarterly

Sheila T. McAnear Advertising/art director | 256-640-3973 sheila.goodlifemagazine@gmail.com

MoMc Publishing LLC P.O. Box 28, Arab, Al 35016 www.good-life-magazine.net

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Inside 10 | Good Fun

With summer coming on, you’ll find lots of activities you can do

16 | Good People

A look at the man who turned Cullman Medical Center around

20 | Good Reads

Your summer list: ‘The Persian Gamble’ and ‘Rules for a Knight’

23 | Good Cooking

Chef Beth Anderson offers some of her ‘$2,800’ recipes

32 | Good Eats

‘That’s amore!’ ... meaning ‘love,’ as in Grumpy’s Italian menu

34 | Good Getaways

Visit Florence for the fun vibe of ‘Alabama’s Renaissance City’

38 | A loft that fits

A year in Joseph Fisher’s loft and it’s more ‘home’ than his old house

45 | ‘Margaret Jean’

Rendered immobile, she never let her disability bring her down

50 | Toys that bind

The brothers Basch and their families have a close, fun bond

56 | Gone fishing

Ray and Benton Buchmann have gone fishing everywhere, forever

64 | Ainsley and Quick

A girl and her horse find perfect sync as they race for a state title

71 | Out ‘n’ About

Mix a bunch of young kids with baby farm animals and it’s cute On the cover | Ainsley Irani and Quick proudly bear the standard at the opening of a horse show. Photo by Kim Sharit.

This page | Beth Anderson’s recipe for this luscious chocolate mousse came from “Cook.”

Photo by David Moore

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In 1999-2000, Fred “Nall” Hollis, self-portrait center, drew and painted a series of Alabama artists. The exhibit at the Burrow Museum features some of these portraits – including those of Jimmy Lee Sudduth, left, and Bruce Larsen, right – along with samples of their work.

Nall portraits of Alabama artists and selections of their work to be featured at Burrow Museum “Alabama Art Inside Out” featuring a portrait series by internationally acclaimed Nall of Fairhope will be on exhibit this summer at Evelyn Burrow Museum on the campus of Wallace State Community College.

The exhibit combines portraits of various Alabama artists created

by Nall to accompany selections of each artist’s work, providing visitors a deeper understanding of these creative visionaries. The special exhibit – set for June 15-Sept. 15 – is on loan from the Troy University International Arts Center.

Museum admission is free; open 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Friday and 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday. More info: www. burrowmuseum.org; or 256-352-8457.

Photos by Mark Moseley Courtesy of Troy University 10

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Mose T, above left; and, below his portrait, one of his mixed media pieces, title unknown; Frank Flemming, above right; and, below him, his glazed porcelain piece titled “Catfish.

Good Fun

The time is right ... get out

• Now through May 31 – “Illuminations” “Illuminations: Art that Makes the Spirit Soar” at the Burrow Museum is a collection of illuminated manuscripts of devotion, some more than 500 years old, as well as stained glass, textiles, paintings, relics and other religious works from the Renaissance to modern day. Items are on loan from the Birmingham Museum of Art, St. Bernard Abbey, Sacred Heart and private collections, along with exhibits from the Burrow Museum’s permanent collection.

Admission to the museum is free.

It’s open 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Friday and 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday. For more information: www.burrowmuseum.org; or 256-352-8457.

• May 11 – Stony Lonesome Mud Run This event is rain or shine – since you’ll be sloshing in the mud anyway, rain can only help. Hundreds of crazies are expected to brave the muddy obstacles for the fifth annual 5K or onemile walk/run at Stony Lonesome OHV Park on Ala. 69 in Bremen. All you need is an old pair of pants – and a top for females. Then you are welcome to all the mind, nerve and emotional therapy that running, sliding, rolling, splashing and fun that tons of mud have to offer.

The 5K starts at 8 a.m. You might want to go ahead and register. Fees to participate are $30 for the 5K (for those 13 and older) and $15 for the fun mile run/walk (all ages). Teams of four can run for $100.

For more info and to register online: http://www.cullmancountyparks.com; or call: 256-287-1133.

• May 25 – Smith Lake Memorial Day Usher in the summer at Cullman County’s Smith Lake Park with its annual music festival 9 a.m.–6 p.m. on the Saturday before Memorial Day. Live music will be going on all day as you check out the craft and food vendors along with fun contests, bounce houses and such for the kids. The water balloon toss is at 1 p.m. with the decorated golf cart (now OHVs) parade at 3:30. The

Three on a String (now with four) opens Hanceville’s Summer Concert Series June 8. pool opens and – of course – there’s always the lake.

Admission to the park is free. For more info, call the park: 256-739-2916.

• May 31-June 1 – Rock the South Bigger than ever, RTS is moving from 15 acres at Heritage Park in Cullman to 140 acres about two miles away at 1872 County Road 469, creating room for RV and camping and the projected weekend crowd of 65,000.

On stage see Kid Rock, Florida Georgia Line, Brooks & Dunn, Jake Owen, Morgan Wallen, Mitchell Tenpenny, Jimmie Allen, Colt Ford, Travis Denning and Hardy.

Two-day general admission passes to the biggest party in the South remain $99. Premium packages are selling out but may still be available for spiffy glamping tents and VIP passes. You can buy a general admission pass at the gate … if they’re not gone. For more info and tickets, visit: rockthesouth.com.

• June 8 – Hanceville Concerts in the Park The first of the concert series – Family Fun Fest – features

Birmingham’s entertaining Three on a String and Jesse Priest Music. The fun runs 4-9 p.m. at Veterans Park. The concert is free, sponsored by the city of Hanceville, Cullman Electric Co-op, Cullman-Jefferson Gas and Pepsi.

The fun includes a mechanical bull, rock wall, paddle boats, face painting, food trucks, bounce houses and more.

The dog park will be in full swing.

Bring a lawn chair. If it rains, the event will be in the Hanceville Civic Center. Concert admission is free; tickets for various activities will be sold.

• June 8 – Dodge City Days Expect several thousand folks in town as merchants on Ala. 69 will offer great deals and fun events. Twenty-five vendors were already signed up as of mid-April, said Mayor Tawana Canada.

New this year will be a free gospel concert by the Battleground Trio at 6 p.m. at the community center. Get free hot dogs and drinks as long as they last.

A gospel singing with Genesis will be at 10 a.m. at the senior center. Seniors get a free BBQ or hot dog plate; others can buy them for $2 each. Kids can enjoy inflatables and a clown at Life MAY | JUNE | JULY 2019

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Church, and the Dodge City VFD will display equipment at People’s Bank.

For more info, call city hall: 256-2870364.

members. For more info call CWAC: 256-775-SWIM(7946).

• June 8 – Hanceville Antique Tractor and Engine Show The show’s 22nd edition will be 9 a.m.-3 p.m. on the campus of Wallace State Community College. More than 50 tractors are expected, as well as a traveling grist mill, a knife sharpener and a knife maker.

There will be a tractor parade, about noon, tractor races, a skillet-throwing contest, food and homemade ice cream.

There is no registration fee, and admission is free. Bring a lawn chair for the races. For more info, call: Charles Allen, 205-616-4173; Bonnie Hamrick Brannan, 256-590-2478; or Hanceville City Clerk Tania Wilco, 256-352-9830.

• June 14-Sept. 13 – Second Fridays Join the festivities 5-10 p.m. the second Friday of the month in the Downtown Entertainment District along First Avenue. Enjoy a range of activities from specials at area boutiques (open extended hours) and restaurants to live music, Artist Alley and the Kids Zone. A different activity – such as a corn hole tournament – will be featured monthly at Depot Park. The Antique and Classic Car Cruise-In is back, and the Farm Y’all Program will have the farmer’s market open.

Second Fridays is co-sponsored by the Cullman Area Chamber of Commerce and Cullman Park and Rec. For more info, call the chamber: 256734-0454, or CPR: 256-734-9157.

• June 13 – Dive-In Movies It’s a splash! First in the summer’s monthly pool movies is “Muppet Treasure Island” at 8:45 p.m. in Cullman Wellness and Aquatic Center’s outdoor pool. Free to members; $7 for non-

• June 14 – Drive-In Movies “Tangled” is the first of two oldfashioned drive-in movies to be shown – for free – on a blow-up screen in front of the Nesmith Park pool. Bring the fam and watch from your vehicle, lawn

chairs or blankets. Showtime is 8:45 p.m. For more info, call Cullman Park and Rec: 256-734-9157.

• June 22 – Cancer motorcycle ride The Eighth Annual Bikers Against Cancer Ride takes a new route this year to Lake Guntersville State Park. (Rain date: June 29.) Riders will be escorted by members of the Cullman County Sheriff’s Office and the Cullman Police Department.

It begins at the parking lot behind Cullman Regional Medical Center (POB 2) with registration at 7:30 a.m. and kickstands up at 9:30. Cost is $25 per bike, $10 for an extra rider, which includes a complimentary breakfast, snacks at the rest stop and lunch afterward.

Proceeds benefit the Bosom Buddies support group that works to meet the needs of cancer patients and their families. For more info: 256-339-0911 or 256-347-5993.

• June 27 – Ray Stevens CabaRay Dinner Show You don’t have to be a member of

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the Wallace State Community College Alumni to make this trip … just a Ray Stevens fan. Laugh out loud at this 90-minute show as he plays his many hits on stage with his band and backup singers.

One of “Music City’s” big new attractions, the state-of-the-art performance center features premium, 700-seat dining and beverage services, piano bar, recording studio and television production facilities.

The trip includes a reserved seat and dinner (choice of chicken, salmon, pork chop or vegetarian meal), motor coach transportation and gratuity. Time will be allowed for autographs as well as entertainment in the piano bar (may even be Ray, himself).

Note: the registration deadline is June 5. Cost is $125 per person.

For more info contact LaDonna Allen: 256-352-8071; ladonna.allen@ wallacestate.edu. Register online under events at: /www.wsccfuturefoundation. org.

• July 4 – Smith Lake fireworks Celebrate Independence Day

The July 4 fireworks show at Smith Lake Park draws huge crowds. Photo provided.

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Heartland Quilt Guild President Melissa Cartee, left, and Geraldine Hendrix machine-pieced the 80x80-inch quilt that will be given away July 13 at group’s show. Member Porsia Anderson machined-quilted the quilt, which features the official Alabama State Block, above. Buy tickets for the quilt at the show or from any guild member. You don’t have to be present to win. Photos provided.

• July 12-13 – Quilting show The Heartland Quilt Guild of Cullman presents “200 Years of Alabama Quilting.”

Participating guild members will display their entries into “Stars Fell on

Alabama,” the 2018 quilting challenge.

There will be a judged quilt show, vendors, door prizes, a drawing for a donation quilt made by guild members, special displays, demonstrations and more.

The show will be 9 a.m.-4 p.m. both days in the East Elementary School gymnasium.

For more information: Hazel Ruehl, 256-339-2224; Porcia Anderson, 256737-7557.

food and arts and crafts vendors are expected at the park during the day with a 30-minute fireworks show at 9 p.m. Admission to the park for the show is $5 per person. For more info call: 256-739-2916.

• July 15-19 – Summer Theatre Camp Led by Cullman High School Theater and Fine Arts Department staff, camp is 8 a.m.-5 p.m. daily.

Get instruction in acting, dancing and singing culminating with a show at CHS on July 28; show admission is $5.

Open to students in grades 3-9, camp cost is $100; register at the Cullman Civic Center or online at: www.cullmanrecreation.org. For more info call CPR: 256-734-9157.

• July 20 – Summer Concert Series The Natchez Trace Band will headline the second installment of the Hanceville concert series. Around since the ‘70s, the group performs acoustic classic rock from the Beatles, Badfinger, Mamas and Papas, Fleetwood Mac and Crosby, Stills and Nash and others. Also performing will be Another Hero.

The event is 5-11 p.m. at Hanceville’s Veterans Park, sponsored by the city and Cabin Fever Beverages. You can buy tickets for paddle boats, climbing the rock wall, bull riding, bounce houses and more.

Concert admission is $5; free for kids 5 and under. It’s a rain-or-shine event, you might want to bring an umbrella along with your lawn chairs.

• July 8-10 – Summer Art Camp Open to 4-year-olds, daily activities include fundamental skills in creating art and exposure to different styles and techniques. Day trips feature local artists’ work and further exposure to different facets of art.

A meal plan can be purchased.

It’s held at Art Park at the corner of Main Avenue SW and 2nd Street SW. Cost is $50. Registration is open at the Cullman Civic Center or online at: www.cullmanrecreation.org.

For more info call CPR: 256-7349157.

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• July 18 – Dive-In Movies The fun continues at the monthly pool movies with “Inside Out” at 8:45 p.m. in Cullman Wellness and Aquatic Center’s outdoor pool. Free to members; $7 for non-members.

For more info call CWAC: 256-775SWIM(7946).

• July 22-24 – Summer Art Camp

Open to kids 5-12, daily activities include fundamental skills in creating art and exposure to different styles and techniques. Day trips will feature local artists’ work and further exposure to different facets of art. A meal plan will be available to purchase. Camp is held at Art Park at the corner of Main Avenue SW and 2nd Street SW. Cost is $100.

Registration is open at the Cullman Civic Center or online at: www. cullmanrecreation.org. For more info call CPR: 256-734-9157.

• July 26 – Drive-In Movies “Mary Poppins Returns” is the second and final old-fashioned drivein movie that will be shown – for free – on a blow-up screen in front of the pool at Nesmith Park. Bring the fam and watch from your vehicle, lawn chairs or blankets. Showtime is 8:45 p.m. For more info, call Cullman Park and Rec: 256-734-9157.

• July 27 – Barbie Jeep Races and “24-Hour” Night Ride Stony Lonesome’s previous

Extreme Barbie Jeep races some 30 participants and 1,200 spectators to see “Hey-y’all-watch-this!” grownups rumble and tumble down steep four-wheeler trails on non-motorized plastic Barbie Jeeps. Google it to get an idea of the insanity level involved to win $250. Bring a Barbie Jeep, helmet and join the fun.

Usually in the summer the park is open for trail riding 7:30 a.m.-6 p.m.

But this Saturday and Sunday is one of the times that, for the regular $15 park admission price, you can ride until your arms and legs drop off, your wheels drop off, or midnight rolls around. Call the park for more info: 256-287-1133.

• July 29-Aug. 2– Music Camp Open to ages 6-12, the camp runs daily from 8 a.m.-noon at Cullman Civic Center. Cost is $100 and provides a fun and challenging week of singing, listening, moving, harmonizing and playing various rhythm instruments. Children will perform for parents during the last hour of the last day of the camp.

Registration is open at the Cullman Civic Center or online at: www. cullmanrecreation.org. For more info call CPR: 256-734-9157.

• Aug. 1– Dive-In Movies The final swimming pool-viewed flick of the summer is “A Bug’s Life” ” at 8:45 p.m. in Cullman Wellness and Aquatic Center’s outdoor pool. Free to members; $7 for non-members.

For more info call CWAC: 256-775SWIM(7946).

• Aug. 2 – EvaBank Midnight Run 5K Join in the annual through the streets of Cullman starting at 11:59 p.m. at the Cullman Civic Center. Cost is $25. Runners will be chip-timed; awards to overall winners and age bracket winners.

A pre-race and post-race black light party will take place at the civic center. All runners will receive a T-shirt and post-race food.

For more info, call Cullman Park and Rec: 256-734-9157. You can also register there at the office or online at: www.cullmanrecreation.org.

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Good People

5questions Story and photo

by David Moore

T

he first time James Clements ever stepped foot inside a hospital was to start his career in healthcare management in 1982.

Since first stepping foot inside Cullman Regional Medical Center as its administrator in August 2014, the facility has made great strides in the services it offers and the number of people it serves – this last category increasing by 24 percent across Cullman Regional’s service area. In the process Cullman Regional has bucked the trend and turned from an outfit operating in the red to one of the few non-metro medical centers in Alabama operating in the black.

“We did market research and asked our consumers what they were looking for in a healthcare provider and what role they wanted Cullman Regional to have in their care,” James says of his early days here. “Access … our community said they needed better access to healthcare.”

To meet that need, in the past year alone, Cullman Regional has: • Opened its new fifth floor, adding 30 beds for an inpatient capacity of 145; • Opened an urgent care/outpatient imaging center, the latter with advanced MRI and CT capabilities; • Opened Cullman Regional Urology Clinic; • Opened Cullman Regional Family Care Clinic, in the process adding a family physician and a certified nurse practitioner; • Added 3D mammography; • Partnered with local physician owners to purchase a majority investment in The Surgery Center of Cullman; • Launched the da Vinci Robotic Surgery program; • Provided $250,000 to local physician practices to help recruit new doctors and specialists, recruited a urologist and two family practitioners; 16

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James Clements

He brought in the first aid kit to flip Cullman Regional from red to black The Cliff Notes version of James’ formula for success – here and throughout his career – has been teamwork, communications, quick identification of issues and action.

A

Georgia boy, James grew up in Macon, spending as many weekends as possible visiting his grandparents’ farm in the southern part of the state, especially in the fall and winter.

“I loved to quail and dove hunt,” he says of those visits. “I got the best of it. I never had to do any of the back-breaking work that my parents’ generation had to do. The worst it got was maybe picking vegetables for a week in the summer.”

James played basketball and baseball, pitching for his high school team. But the competition he loved evoked a price.

“I sometimes had problems with my shoulder, elbows and knees from over utilization. That came from playing constantly. Now that I think about it, I never went to the hospital.”

“We did not have the knowledge then about the harm of putting hot salve on a bad shoulder or elbow. When I had pain, the reaction was to take a cortisone shot and play the next day,” he adds. “Today we think that’s foolish, but back then it’s what you did to keep on playing.”

James’ father was a banker; his mother worked for the government. Despite a career in hospital management, he doubts he inherited any attraction to numbers from his parents.

“Dad was more of a ‘relationship’ banker,” James says. “My mom was the numbers person in the household, but I probably have more of a gene for logic and business than I would say, pure accounting.”

“I’ll do accounting long enough,” he laughs, “to figure what’s essential to the business that hired me.”

A

fter graduating in 1982 with a business degree from Mercer University

in Macon, Georgia, James – logically – signed on with the highest bidder.

“The company that made me the best offer was Charter Medical in Macon,” he says. “They owned about 35 hospitals when I went to work for them and had just purchased a group on the West Coast.”

Even as a trainee, with his knack for identifying and attacking business problems Charter sent him to its hospitals in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Dallas and Houston.

“It was a total immersion theory, I guess – I had never even entered a hospital,” James says. “Charter was trying to transition them, stabilize them.”

Many of the hospitals were city- or county-owned, and a common thread was a business muddled by politics.

“A lot of their decisions were politically oriented rather than logical.

To a point they could get away with that, but losses had gotten so large they had to switch to being run like a real business.”

In 1998, he was sent to Charter Springs Hospital in Ocala, Fla., as chief financial officer, a highly unusual promotion for someone not yet 25.

“I was way too young,” he laughs.

“They were growing so fast they were desperate.”

T

hrough a job change and a series of promotions, James became VP of operations at Health Mark in Atlanta in 1987. Over his seven years with the company, he not only had 25 CEOs and CFOs reporting to him but managed to earn a master’s degree in business.

The job was demanding, but a good fit for the competitor businessman.

He was totally immersed in hospital operations, especially those that were lacking.

“It was a road-warrior job,” James says. “I was on the road 80 percent of the time, from one fire to another, in more ways than one.”

SNAPSHOT: JAMES CLEMENTS

EARLY LIFE: Born in 1960; grew up in Macon, Ga. FAMILY: Five children: Jennifer Widener lives in Columbus, Ga., with husband Brent, children Katie and Allie; James, Jr., lives in Atlanta; Joseph, lives in Atlanta. Married to Wendy Squires; daughter, Madison,eighth grade at Cullman Middle School; plays golf and on swim team for CHS; also swims year-round for Madison Swim Association Club team.

EDUCATION: Bachelor in business administration, Mercer University, 1982; master’s in business administration, Georgia State University, 1993.

CAREER: 1982-87, Charter Medical, Macon, left as CFO; 1987-1994, Hallmark Healthcare, Atlanta, left as VP of financial operations over $300 million group of 17 hospitals; 1994-97, Value Mark Healthcare, Atlanta, left as founder/board member and executive VP and CFO of seven-hospital system; 1998-2001, CFO of Clarion Resources Communications, $40 million international telecommunications firm; 2001-13, Tenet Healthcare, left as CEO of special projects, Atlanta; 2013-14, WellStar Health System, VP of development and strategic partnerships for its five-hospital system in Atlanta; 2014-present, CEO of Cullman Regional Medical Center.

OTHER ACTIVITIES: American College of Healthcare, Fellow since 2016; Advisory board and past chairman, Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Ala.; served on board of Physician Performance Network; Board Member Atlanta Airport Chamber of Commerce.

MAY | JUNE | JULY 2019

17

James identified operational issues, managerial issues, you name it.

“I had people describe the problems to me, and a lot of the times the problems were the people describing the problems to me,” he says. “Problems are nearly always solved by hiring the right people, and the solution is teamwork and communication, logically and succinctly identifying the problem or major problems. And action.”

He also found politics to be one of the usual suspects he brought in for questioning.

“It’s easy for a hospital leadership – regardless of who owns the hospital – to fall into political traps, because a lot of what we do is very subjective. The easiest answer is to tell everyone everything is awesome, that they are awesome and that things will be better tomorrow. That’s the easiest answer … in the short run.”

“I’m not sure all businesses are like healthcare, but this is the only one I know in depth,” James continues. “You have a lot of very smart and caring people in hospitals, but to improve takes teamwork, and specific, direct, communication.”

He laughs and recalls watching his son as a 10th-grade quarterback demonstrate “specific, direct, communication” after a play blew up.

“He grabbed a big lineman and pulled him down to his facemask, and I could see him communicating directly and specifically. I bet that lineman didn’t miss his block on the next play.”

I

n 2001 James met Wendy Squires, who would become his second wife.

He also that year went to work for Tenet Healthcare, which today owns 65 acute-care hospitals, 23 surgical hospitals and more than 450 outpatient facilities. Promotions from CFO positions led James in 2006 to CEO of South Fulton Medical Center, a 392-bed medical center in the highly competitive Atlanta market.

After improving patient quality, services and the finances there, in 2012-13 he was named CEO of special projects, that being the system integration of South Fulton into Atlanta Medical Center.

“One thing I have learned is you have to remain adaptable,” James says. “Situations change – constantly.

18

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Solutions, however, usually remain the same: teamwork, direction, communication and action.”

A year after that project, James was working for another hospital group.

Amidst the epidemic of merger mania, it was announced his current hospital was being sold. That same July day in 2014, an executive headhunter phoned him.

Would he be interested in taking over as CEO of the medical center in the small city of Cullman in north-central Alabama?

“This is the first job I was ever recruited for,” James says, still seeming a bit surprised at the timing.

He looked into it and found Cullman was three hours from Atlanta, where his son was beginning college on a baseball scholarship. Macon, where his mother and brother lived, was only four hours away. So he drove over for an interview and a look-see.

“I knew nothing of the city or the hospital,” James says.

Two selling points, he says, were a quality school system for their daughter and a family-oriented atmosphere.

Cullman reminded him of Macon and eschewing Atlanta’s traffic would be a huge relief.

So in August he dove into the challenges of his new job at Cullman Regional. First, he had to stop that bleeding, stop the red. After four years, the patient was stabilized, operating in the black.

“There are still about as many ‘fires’ today,” James says. “But now our issues are about growth.”

1.

How has healthcare changed over the 36-year course of your career?

It’s changed a lot.

Go back 30 years and the federal government paid a percentage of whatever your cost was to run the hospital. There was no great pressure to keep costs under control.

Most of your work was done under one roof, at one location – on the hospital campus. Surgery and imaging were all performed in a hospital.

Everything was done in a hospital.

Now, because of greater focus on being consumer oriented and cost changes, we operate under many different roofs. We have a surgery

center now, urgent care, outpatient imaging.

Thirty years ago, everything pretty much happened in the hospital. Now, about 50 percent of our revenue is outpatient.

In terms of my job, what changed drastically is when you get things under different buildings and different roofs; you are managing in different geographic locations. You are building and expanding your business in other locations.

Technology had also changed dramatically. Medical records were all manual in the past. Now orders and everything go into the computer system.

In addition to that, technology has greatly changed patient services. Take the Operating Room, for example – we have the Da Vinci Robotic Surgery system. It’s state of the art. Our new urologist gave a demonstration of it recently. It’s a pretty amazing machine.

2.

So how do hospitals have to change in order to remain vital in today’s healthcare environment?

There are two big drivers to that.

One, the way you get paid changes every year, sometime without a lot of notice.

In our case here, we had to rapidly expand our outpatient services, so we opened an urgent care clinic and outpatient imaging. We purchased a majority interest in a surgery center.

Specialty and outpatient services are important to your strategic future. And for a lot of procedures, insurance pays only for outpatient services. If you don’t offer these services, people will go somewhere else for them.

In the past, if you had a health issue, you would be booked into the hospital for a battery of tests. Today, insurance will pay hospitalization only if you’re acutely ill.

The second driver to remaining vital is the increasing competition for specialty services, such as orthopedics and spine, or neurology. That is what you see the Huntsville and Birmingham systems advertising.

We are adding resources at Cullman Regional so people don’t have to travel for those specialty services.

We have added equipment and

manpower, and Lindsey Dossey and her team have marketed it so people know what we offer. With that, we’ve had a 15-percent increase in the number of local patients having procedures done here.

It’s the same at most rural hospitals … the “image” issue. Lindsey and her team’s job is to tell our story, tell people what our capabilities are locally. You have to let people know what you can do – and that you can do it very well.

Like in most business, I think there are strengths and weaknesses. If you go to Huntsville or Birmingham, you have to fight traffic, parking. At Cullman Regional, you get valet parking, much easier parking for visitors, and you get the same high-quality healthcare – I would say the care is more personalized – for the majority of what you need.

On the other hand, there are certain procedures for people who are very sick or injured and need to be in Birmingham or Huntsville. But for most health issues, local is better and more convenient.

3.

What types of changes and advancements has Cullman Regional made over the past few years in order to continue to have success and grow?

We improved our image and branding. We added valet parking. We provide urgent care, a family practice … improving access to care is an important part of it.

In addition, we also started an employed-physician network. It recruits and employs physicians to improve access to urology, OB/GYN, surgery, family practice. The urgent care has hospital employed physicians, as well.

When I got here, we had no employed physicians. If we got new physicians, they

came through a local group, which we might have helped.

From 2012-2016, the percentage of physicians working for hospitals nationally has increased from 26 percent to 42 percent. Younger physicians want to be employed by hospitals … it’s more difficult for private physicians to deal with changes in payment.

So one of our tools needed to be employing physicians. The national trend was moving there in a huge way, and we weren’t. It’s a very important way that we were able to improve access to local healthcare.

Our next issue or ‘fire’ is addressing the continuing competition to deliver consumer-oriented outpatient and specialty services, such as orthopedics, spine and neurology. That will be ongoing in the future, and there are many different versions of those issues.

4.

How do you measure what these changes mean to Cullman Regional and the community?

I think the answer would be the 15-percent increase in people in Cullman selecting us as their healthcare provider.

Also, the Alabama Hospital Association recently released a statistic that says 75 percent of the state’s rural hospitals are operating at a loss.

We are in the minority – operating in the black. We had to change our operations to get from the red to the black, the short answer, again, was teamwork, communications, quickly identifying the issues and taking action. And forming a team based on performance, not politics.

That is the same answer today as it was 30 years ago. Some things don’t change.

LeonardDesign Jock D. Leonard Architect

101 First Avenue NE, Suite 140 Cullman, AL 35055 Telephone 256-739-8020 Facsimile 256-739-8029 Cell 256-962-1530 email jock@leonarddesign.net

Another thing that has changed …

I’ve had several hospital CEOs tell me that 15-20 years ago it was easier to get business decisions right. There is a much narrower range to get it right today. And one of the stats that highlights this is that 75 percent of hospitals operate at a loss now.

5.

Tell us something about yourself that most people may not know?

James Clements enjoys spending time with his family.

Outdoor activities with the family are a big thing. But I missed a lot of family sporting events in the first half of my career. But now I watch Madison swim and play golf. I meet our boys in Georgia and play golf with them or boat with them. The boys like wake boarding and wake surfing.

Actually, it’s kind of a transition time . . . it’s only been in the last few years that our family hasn’t been completely committed to a series of extracurricular activities including travel baseball, college baseball and more. Now, our schedules actually allow us to have more free time to spend together as a family.

Wendy is very involved. She is president of the golf and swim team booster clubs at Cullman High School as well as the summer swim program.

We do “Camp Clements” on the Fourth of July week at Lake Oconee, east of Atlanta. We have the granddaughters, and they go to tennis camp. We have boating, ring toss, bean bag toss. There are two or three activities a day – a lot of family outside time.

I’m typically working – or doing something with my family.

Good Life Magazine Dr. Jim and Judy Brown’s home on Smith Lake designed by Leonard Design.

MAY | JUNE | JULY 2019

19

Good Reads

Rosenberg strikes hard, fast, never letting up in this thriller

That Ethan Hawke offers us a compass to a better world

n typical Joel C. Rosenberg style, “The Persian Gamble” (sequel to “The Kremlin Conspiracy”) starts off like a house-afire and doesn’t let up until you’ve turned the last page and breathlessly put down the book.

The entire time I was reading (not long!) I “It’s President Luganov.” couldn’t help but wonder what was real and what “What about him?” was fiction. But you can “He’s been assassinated.” say that about any of Mr. “What?”

Rosenberg’s books.

“And not just him – Ripped from the Dmitri Nimkov, too,” headlines and sometimes Vinetti explained, prophetic, his thrilling story is like no other. referring to the head of There are North the FSB, Russia’s main Koreans, Russians, intelligence service.

Middle East Sheiks and “That’ s not possible.”

Mullahs, good guys, “It’s true, and there’s more. really, really bad guys and The guy you just put on our hero Marcus Ryker juggling more than just that G4 to whisk out of hand grenades.

Moscow – the Raven – What could go wrong? that’s the guy the Russians Full of history, action, say pulled the trigger.” truly believable characters (now friends of mine) and, yes, with the fate of the entire world at stake, “The Persian Gamble” is a book you must read. Now. While there’s still time.

– Deb Laslie

ules for a Knight” by Ethan Hawke, (yes, that Ethan Hawke) is quite possibly the best book, besides the Bible of course, that can be given to young readers to provide them with a clear moral compass on which to base their lives.

Sir Thomas Lemuel There is no dirt in heaven, Hawke is on a quest. It is very dangerous and and we are here to make far from his home. the earth as much like He fears he may not Heaven as we can. return.

A knight is the best kind So he pens his last of servant, leaving every letter to his children in space he enters brighter the hopes of teaching them everything he will and cleaner than when he not be able to share with arrived. His surroundings them in person. reflect his state of mind.

The knight’s short Constant awareness musings on solitude, of even the smallest humility, forgiveness, detail trains your mind honesty, courage, grace, pride and patience not to be observant and only give us insights conscientious. A knight into this man, but also knows where he keeps in the love he expresses his flint box. for his family and all humanity.

We should all read this book and share it with our young ones. We – and our world – will be better for it.

– Deb Laslie

I

20

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Good Cooking

Beth’s recipes

After her restaurant career she went to culinary school

Story and photos

by David Moore

B

eth Anderson went to culinary school and earned the designation of chef. But it’s not like she did it to launch a career in the restaurant business. Nope.

Nothing of the sort.

She first learned to cook from her mother, the late Martha Griffith. Well, some about cooking. Once while making a birthday cake, Beth caught her pigtails in the electric mixer.

“You can imagine the mess,” she laughs.

Long before the notion of culinary school ever rose in her mind, Beth and her husband, Phil Anderson, owned the Sonic Drive-In in Demopolis.

They sold that, moved to Greenville, Miss., and opened a catfish restaurant, expanded to locations in Conway and Searcy, Ark. They sold those and bought another Sonic, this one in Kosciusko, Miss.

Then came the catfish restaurant in Little Rock, where Beth also opened a cafeteria in the state capitol during Gov. Bill Clinton’s day.

When her dad, Buddy – today living at Morning Side in Cullman – had a heart attack, Beth and Phil sold their restaurants and returned home to Demopolis, their son Rob in tow. Phil helped Buddy at his meat-packing plant, and Beth opened a deli. She later sold it and opened a restaurant at Demopolis Yacht Basin.

Attending culinary school never tickled her mind. Although Phil had done most of the cooking, Beth had learned plenty about the restaurant business … and never again caught her hair in an electric mixer.

B

eth grew up in Demopolis. Her mother, as most did then, seasoned her cooking with lots of bacon and grease, a diet augmented with Buddy owning the packing plant.

Demopolis native Chef Beth Anderson enjoys cooking and entertaining at her and Phil’s WindBrook home in Cullman. “My momma gave a party for every bride that got married in Demopolis,” she says. “I learned some cooking from her but a lot more about southern entertaining.”

“Everyone who worked for him got free meat – red meat and pork – and they all had heart attacks,” Beth says.

Her grandparents owned the weekly Demopolis Times, and she hoped to one day run it. After studying journalism at The University of Alabama in 1974 she returned home to write and sell ads for the paper.

In October 1976 Beth met Phil, a young Mississippi man who owned the local Sonic.

“I went by to sell him an ad,” she says. “As he tells it, “I didn’t need an ad. I needed a wife.’” They married the following May. Still working at the newspaper, Beth helped Phil at Sonic at lunch and on weekends. At most of their other

restaurants, she worked the front and he primarily cooked.

I

n 1996, they sold the meat-packing company and scoured the Southeast for a company to buy. Beth favored group travel tours. Phil, however, led them to buy Accessory Outlet, a wholesale firm in Cullman that sold chrome add-ons to spiff up trucks and today operates only online. And so they moved here.

In 2001, the Andersons bought Lookout Mountain Tarpaulin from an elderly couple in Chattanooga they happened to meet in Turkey while on a Mediterranean cruise.

“My southern mouth attracted some attention from the people at the table next to us,” Beth grins.

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23

1 lb. of Conecuh sausage 1 butternut squash Olive oil Salt Cayenne pepper CONECUH SAUSAGE AND BUTTERNUT SQUASH SKEWERS

Grill sausage and cool. Cut sausage into small one-inch rounds. Preheat oven to 400.

Peel and cut the butternut squash into oneinch cubes. Toss the squash in olive oil, salt

She, Phil and Rob moved the business to Cullman, and initially they all worked there.

“But with Rob back working with us, I could see there was no reason for three Andersons in the office,” Beth says.

Like the buzzer on the oven going off, it was time for her to, hmmm … go to culinary school. So in 2009, at age 55, she enrolled at Culinard in Birmingham.

“I figured I would go down there and really have fun,” Beth says. “I didn’t know I had to write term papers.”

Actually, her desire was to use her two-year degree and certification as a chef to teach. And the last three months of the two-year program she did that at Viking Cooking School in Franklin, Tenn.

But she wasn’t done learning yet.

After she graduated from Culinard, Phil – who has a hankering for Italian food – 24

MAY | JUNE | JULY 2019

and cayenne pepper. Place on a sheet tray covered with parchment paper. Bake 15-20 minutes until done. Toss halfway through the cooking time to evenly brown. Cool slightly.

Skewer a piece of sausage and then a piece of squash on a decorative pick. (Add another sausage if you want.)

These can be prepared in advance and reheated or served at room temperature.

Great appetizer.

sent her to Italy for two weeks to cook with a Tuscan chef.

“That,” Beth says, “really was fun.”

A

s a volunteer Beth enjoyed teaching culinary classes for several years at Cullman Area Career Center.

She took students to statewide competitions, finishing for three consecutive years in third, second and first place. That last year, her students also competed in nationals in San Antonio.

She and Phil have also done volunteer cooking at Cullman First United Methodist Church, for the Cullman Regional Foundation and for Cullman Women’s League.

At live auctions for charity fundraisers, she twice donated a dinner party for eight at their house, each time raising $2,800. Phil drove the guests and

served as waiter for the five-course feasts – plus appetizers – Beth prepared with the help of one of her former students who went to nationals.

Her recipes featured delicious Italian accents with an emphasis on fresh local produce.

“That kind of cooking is a lot of work,” Beth laughs. “But we had fun.

The dinners run from about 6 to 11:30.

After we’d take everyone home, we’d go to Waffle House because we hadn’t had anything to eat.”

This year she also donated six private cooking lessons to the auction, which was won by Dan Wilhite. Chef Beth may or may not pass on any mixer safety tips, but he’ll no doubt learn some delicious recipes and tips from her.

Above and on the following pages are some of her recipes you, too, can enjoy …

Good Life Magazine

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THOMPSON PEACH AND GOAT CHEESE SALAD Thompson peaches Martha’s French dressing Thompson peach preserves Goat cheese Toasted pecans Romaine lettuce torn into pieces Dressing 2 Tbsp. of Martha’s French dressing 1 Tbsp. of Thompson peach preserves Whisk until combined.

Wash peaches and slice into thin wedges with skin on. Put 1 Tbsp. of salad dressing in the bowl per person.

Top with salad greens. Toss greens in the dressing. In separate bowl, toss the peaches in the dressing. Arrange the greens on a plate. Top with the peaches. Sprinkle with goat cheese and then pecans. Serve.

Peaches and peach preserves available at Cullman Farmers Market.

French dressing recipe below.

SUN DRIED TOMATO ARTICHOKE QUICHE ½ cup cream ½ cup whole milk ½ cup mayonnaise 1 cup Gruyere cheese, grated ½ cup Parmesan cheese, grated 6 eggs 1 tsp. salt ½ tsp. pepper ¼ pkg. of smoked sun dried tomatoes 2 cups of fresh spinach chopped slightly ½ can artichoke hearts (quartered and patted dry) Pie crust Olive oil

One baked chicken breast (optional) Heat oven to 400. Place chicken breast tossed in olive oil and sprinkled with salt and pepper onto a rack. Bake 15-18 minutes until almost done. Cool chicken then slice.

Turn oven down to 375. Place unbaked pie crust in a deep-dish pie pan. Add a layer of spinach. Top with chicken. Arrange the artichoke hearts. Top with the two cheeses.

Arrange sun dried tomatoes. In a bowl whisk together eggs, cream, milk,

MARTHA’S FRENCH SALAD DRESSING (Great with Peach and Goat Cheese Salad above) 1 tsp. salt ½ tsp. sugar ½ tsp. pepper ½ tsp. dry mustard ½ tsp. paprika ¼ cup red wine vinegar ¾ cup Wesson oil Whisk all together and keep in the 26

refrigerator until ready to use. I like 1 Tbsp. of salad dressing per person in the bottom of the bowl with all the greens on top to toss. This dressing can be used with sweeter salads, too. Just add a little honey.

MAY | JUNE | JULY 2019

mayonnaise, salt and pepper. Slowly pour mixture over quiche. (You may not have room for all the liquid. Save for an omelet later.)

Bake at 375 for 35-45 minutes until the eggs have set and do not jiggle in the pan. Cool slightly and cut to serve.

This can be made a day in advance.

If so, completely cool quiche then cut into serving sizes. Refrigerate overnight.

Temp dish on the counter for about one hour. When ready to reheat put in a 350-degree oven. Bake for 25-30 minutes and then serve.

WALNUT AND BLUE CHEESE SALAD Dressing 5 Tbsp. white wine vinegar ½ tsp. salt ½ tsp. pepper ½ cup olive oil Salad 1 head romaine lettuce 1 avocado, peeled and cut ( dip in dressing to keep green)

1 green onion chopped 4 oz. blue cheese ½ cup walnuts toasted Tear lettuce into bite-sized pieces. Crumble cheese. Put 1 Tbsp. of dressing in the bottom of each salad bowl. Toss avocado in the dressing. Add lettuce, onion, walnuts and blue cheese. Toss and serve.

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27

PORK TENDERLOIN Tenderloin Salt Pepper Olive oil Grill Trim silver skin off tenderloin; let it rest on the counter for at least two hours to get to room temperature.

Preheat grill to 400. Pat the pork dry. Rub pork with olive oil. Sprinkle aggressively with salt and pepper on all sides. Cook 20-30 minutes depending on the thickness of the meat. Desired temperature is 140. Do not overcook your pork. Tent with foil and rest 10-15 minutes before slicing.

Cook indoors Trim silver skin off the meat and slice into ½-inch thick medallions.

Pat dry. Toss in olive oil and salt and pepper. Preheat a skillet to med high.

Add the medallions to the pan. Do not crowd the pan or you will steam the meat instead of browning it. Flip on both sides to brown evenly. Do not overcook.

ITALIAN GREEN BEANS 1 lb. of fresh whole green beans trimmed 1 clove of garlic, slightly smashed Olive oil Salt Trim green beans. Wash. Put a pot of boiling salted water on the stove. Add green beans and blanch for approximately 3 minutes depending on the thickness of the beans. Taste during the cooking process to not overcook. Drain and drop immediately into a bowl of ice and water. This will stop the cooking. Drain.

In a COLD skillet put 2-3 Tbsp. of olive oil and garlic. Turn on the skillet and slowly brown the garlic.

When it is browned, remove it from the pan. Add the green beans and toss to heat like a stir fry. Salt to taste.

When they are the desired texture, remove and plate.

MUSTARD SAUCE FOR GREEN BEANS ¼ stick butter ½ lemon juiced 1 Tbsp. Dijon mustard 2 Tbsp. toasted sliced almonds Whisk wet ingredients over low heat. Pour over green beans and sprinkle with toasted almonds.

28

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ROASTED SWEET POTATO SALAD 4 medium-sized sweet potatoes, peeled, cut into 1” pieces 5 Tbsp. olive oil 1 tsp. salt ½ tsp. cayenne pepper 1 cup dried cranberries 1 cup chopped scallions (green and whites) 1 lb. of bacon, cooked and crumbled into small pieces Preheat oven to 425 with cooking pan inside. In bowl combine the potatoes, oil, salt, pepper. Toss together and put on preheated pan. Bake 25-30 minutes tossing midway to brown both sides of potatoes.

Dressing 6 Tbsp. balsamic vinegar 1/3 cup of Thompson’s peach preserves 2 Tbsp. of Dijon mustard 2 Tbsp. of honey ¼ cup olive oil ½ tsp. garlic powder (optional) Heat the preserves for a few minutes in the microwave to soften. Whisk all the ingredients together. Gently toss potato mixture with enough dressing to moisten the potatoes. Toss with the cranberries and scallions. Top with crumbled bacon.

Serve warm or room temp. Serve extra dressing on the side.

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COOK’S CHOCOLATE PUDDING (MOUSSE) (Cook was the name of my mother’s cook) ½ cup cocoa 1 cup sugar 3 large eggs 1 cup milk 1 Tbsp. butter 1 tsp. vanilla extract Topping 1 cup whipping cream 2-3 tsp. sugar 1 Hershey bar (room temp) Put all milk and eggs into a blender on low speed until mixed. While blender is still going add dry ingredients until smooth. Put all the blended mixture into a double boiler and cook, stirring occasionally until it thickens. Add the butter and cook a few minutes more.

Let cool. Add vanilla. Put the mixture into the fridge to cool completely. Cover this mixture with some plastic wrap directly on top of the pudding to prevent a skin from forming.

Mix one cup of whipping cream with enough sugar to slightly sweeten to taste – 2-3 Tbsp. will work. Set this mixture aside in the fridge.

To serve, take half of the chocolate pudding mixture and put it into a clear martini or tall wine glasses. Take the other half of the chocolate pudding and mix it with half of the whipped cream.

Whisk this mixture until it looks like milk chocolate. Put the milk chocolate mixture on top of the chocolate pudding in the clear containers.

Dollop whipped cream on top of the milk chocolate mixture. Take a peeler and rake it across a Hershey bar to make chocolate curls. Sprinkle this on top of the whipped cream. Keep in the refrigerator until ready to serve.

GRIFF’S PANCAKES 1 cup flour ½ cup quick cook oats 3 Tbsp. sugar 1 Tbsp. baking powder ¼ tsp. salt 1/8 tsp. nutmeg 2 eggs 1 cup buttermilk ½ tsp. vanilla 3 Tbsp. of melted butter.

Mix dry ingredients with whisk. Add liquid ingredients, mix well with whisk. Set electric skillet or griddle at 350. Spray with Pam or coat with butter. Drop ¼ cup batter for each pancake. Cook on one side until you see bubbles in the batter.

Flip and cook until you see no steam coming from pancakes. Serve with Alaga Syrup and butter.

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HOT GERMAN POTATO SALAD 8 medium potatoes 1 pint sour cream 1/3 cup chopped green onions 1 cup grated extra sharp cheddar cheese 1 stick butter 1 can cream of chicken soup Corn flakes Melted butter Boil the potatoes in the skins. Cool until you can handle them; then peel and grate potatoes while still warm with a box grater (or food mill). Mix sour cream, onions, cheese and grated potato mixture. Melt butter and mix with the soup and potato mixture. Place in an UNGREASED 9x13 casserole dish.

Measure 2-3 cups of corn flakes into a Ziploc bag. Pour melted butter on top of the corn flakes and toss around in the bag.

Top the potato casserole with the corn flakes. Bake at 350 until hot, about 30-45 minutes. Serves 10 to 12.

O P E N S F R I DAY, M AY 24 W I L DWAT E RC U L L M A N .C O M

MAY | JUNE | JULY 2019

31

Good Eats

‘That’s amore!’

There is plenty to ‘love’ on the menu at Grumpy’s Italian Grill

Story David Myers Photos by David Moore

Y

consistency. Diners can opt for chicken alfredo alla carbonara, which includes bacon and mushrooms.

The pizza really won our hearts. The delicately thin and crispy crust is a product of being handmade and hand-rolled then baked in a brick and stone oven.

“It’s not assembly-line pizza,” Keaton

recalls the Deep South Creamery. On tap are domestic and craft beers, including G13 IPA, Mango Kush Wheat Ale, Guinness and Richter’s alongside old favorites Miller and Bud Lite.

ou can find some relics of the old Deep South Creamery in a downstairs restroom where the remains of a vat is visible in the wall. But the real attraction tuffed as we were, Tyler wouldn’t to this building that formerly housed a let us leave without dessert. Homemade milk business is not what sweet treats include Ooey it was in the past but the Gooey Butter Squares, Red delicious offerings being Velvet with Pecans and served up today.

Strawberry Pretzel Salad, Grumpy’s Italian Grill which we had to taste opened in Cullman in 2011 before heading for the door. after a fire destroyed the We soon found out why – it previous restaurant, The was absolutely divine. A Creamery. Owners Tyler layer of strawberry Jell-o and Jennifer Jacobs have topped a creamy layer grown Grumpy’s into a sitting on a crunchy crust thriving family eatery that was salty and buttery at upstairs with a bar below the same time. The savory boasting 26 beers on tap, crust offset the sweetness big screen TVs and an and made for a match made exposed-brick industrial in heaven. vibe.

As a teenager, Tyler First, the food. Rose and started working for I love us some Italian food. the original creator of Pizza, pasta and mozzarella Grumpy’s, who also opened – That’s amore! There was a restaurant of the same too much to love on the name in Arab, eventually menu of artisan pizzas, selling both. Tyler left the Jennifer and Tyler Jacobs own and run Grumpy’s. calzones and baked pasta, job to pursue a business degree at The University of so we relied on our server, Alabama.

Keaton Oliver, also the After finishing school and looking for bar manager, to choose for us. He didn’t explained. “It’s all made from scratch and a career, he offered to buy the restaurant disappoint. made to order.” and did about eight years ago, just about We started with Troj’s Pizza bites, a We appreciated the fact that it wasn’t the time Cullman went wet. Grumpy’s divine appetizer named after a longtime doughy or greasy, making you feel cook. The base is a toasted sub roll topped doughy and greasy after you eat it. It truly was one of the first establishments to sell off with pizza sauce, pepperoni and liquor in Cullman. was the perfect pizza pie. Also satisfying Tyler’s dad is first-term Cullman cheese, served in pull-apart squares. We are the prices. All pizzas sell for less than Mayor Woody Jacobs. His mom, Connie, couldn’t stop tearing off the crispy, melt$20. and grandmother Betty Voigt make those in-your-mouth tempters.

After all that food, we decided to get divine desserts. up and roll down the stairs to check out Grumpy’s, located at 402 5th Street SW, ext came a scalding-from-thethe bar, called The Down Under. It’s a serves lunch and dinner Monday through oven chicken alfredo with buttery garlic cool space with high ceilings and brick Saturday 10:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. In addition bread. The noodles, doused in a creamy walls. A deck added out back invites the to a dining room seating, Grumpy’s offers cheese sauce, were topped with chunks fun to spill outdoors. a party room that can seat 25. of grilled chicken browned to a perfect A mural covering an outside wall

N

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S

Perhaps the king of Grumpy’s menu of artisan pizzas is the “All the Way,” at top. From the middle left is the crazy good strawberry pretzel salad (dessert), chicken salad with fresh fruit and the reasonably priced and equally delicious lasagna and manicotti.

There’s more seating and more fun in The Down Under basement bar.

A

pick-up window is available for call-in orders and a catering menu accommodates large crowds. The regular menu features an array of appetizers including Italian Nachos, as well as salads,

sandwiches and selections just for kids.

The Down Under features karaoke on Wednesdays with trivia on Thursdays and live music most Friday and Saturday nights. The bar is open 4-11 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 4 p.m. until midnight

Fridays and 11 a.m. until midnight Saturdays.

Look for daily drink specials and Grumpy Hour 4-7 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 4 to 6 p.m. Friday.

Good Life Magazine MAY | JUNE | JULY 2019

33

Good Getaways

Florence stands as a fun river town on a hill awash with its own vibe and sense of well being

Story and photos

by David Moore

Y

ou might think Florence is not on the way to anywhere in particular, but that doesn’t matter.

This city of nearly 40,000 people, located on a hill above the Tennessee River and Lake Wilson, is a destination unto itself. Less than 90 minutes from Cullman, it’s a perfect getaway for a day or more.

There’s a reason it’s called Alabama’s Renaissance City.

Vital downtown Florence is lined with unique businesses, restaurants and bars sprung from the energy of historic revitalization and modern entrepreneurship. And don’t forget, this is a college town, home to the University of North Alabama.

There’s plenty to do. Singing River Brewing Company always has something, well, brewing.

The Kennedy-Douglass Center for the Arts holds its annual Arts Alive juried fine arts and crafts festival May 18-19 downtown at Wilson Park, while the

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The Tennessee River is a big part of the “feel” of Florence but hardly all of it. U.S. 72 crosses landscaping. It leads to the University of North Alabama, below center, its 130-acre

the river on O’Neal Bridge before veering east at Court Street, bottom left. The main road through downtown, Court is lined with renovated buildings and inviting campus home to some 7,600 students. Florence is also home to the Marriott Shoals Hotel with its rotating 360 Grille atop Renaissance Tower, below.

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Florence lays claim to the only Frank Lloyd house in Alabama, and one of only a few in the South. The Stanley Rosenblaum House is considered to be one of the finest examples of the iconic architect’s Usonian (an acronym-adjective derived from the “United States of North America”) homes. It was built in 1940 and sits on two acres.

Storytelling Festival is May 17-18 at The Shoals Theatre, also downtown.

The 2019 W.C. Handy Music Festival will be July 19-28. And the annual Billy Reid Shindig at midnight Aug. 23-25 is a weekend of intimate, once-in-a-lifetime concerts, mouthwatering meals, dancing, drinking and unmatched bonhomie as well as a celebration of fashion.

Then there’s Wilson Dam and lake in Florence and nearby Pickwick Dam and lake. And Sheffield, Muscle Shoals and Tuscumbia are all in the neighborhood.

For more information on events, festivals and the arts, visit: www. visitflorenceal.com.

Good Life Magazine

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Think B&B ... bed and bar. It’s walking distance from many restaurants, including City Hardware, above, a great place for ahi tuna lunch salad.

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MAY | JUNE | JULY 2019

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37

It fits

Joseph Fisher’s downtown loft suits him to a ‘T’

Joseph Fisher stands in the terrace doorway in the living room of his loft. The building was about to be condemned before Ron and Trena Pierce bought it about 15 years ago. It had no upstairs at the time and gravel flooring downstairs. They added the upstairs, did major renovations and lived there about 10 years before selling it to Mel and Tess Bailey, from whom Joseph bought the building.

Before he moved in 2001, he made numerous changes throughout the loft.

“It’s a night and day difference,” he says.

“You wouldn’t recognize it. I changed the feel to a more modern look.”

At the same time, he added contrasting antique touches, and keeping the old brick walls of neighboring buildings in his living room was a no-brainer, Joseph says. Staging for these photos was done by his friends and decorators, Libby Crider and Jennifer Franklin of Willow White.

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Joseph stands on his terrace, a great place to entertain. Across Fourth Street to his right is Mary Carter Paint. “The thing I did not realize when I first moved here was how quiet it is,” he says. “You would think it’s noisy, but at night during the week there is no street traffic.

Nothing. And I’m used to the train ... I grew up with it.” Joseph, 32, is the son of Joe and Debbie Fisher.

Story and photos

by David Moore

I

t is, perhaps, like trying on a pair of nice shoes, finding they fit perfectly, feel great. Like you could live in them.

Only in Joseph Fisher’s case it’s not a pair of shoes. It’s the downtown loft he bought: size 3,000 square feet, overlooking the 100 block of Fourth Street SE downtown, styled modern with rich historic accents.

Looks great. Feels even better. What’s not to like? Nothing.

“This space is so open and bright,” Joseph says. “And how often do you get old, exposed brick walls like this in your living room? And your kitchen and bedroom?”

He’s talking in the big living room with

its 12-14-foot ceiling. The furnishings, like those throughout the loft, were pulled together by his friends around the corner at Willow White, a design and decor boutique.

Sunlight floods in from three sets of antique French doors that open to the porch with its low brick wall and railing to the street below.

“And the porch,” Joseph says. “I’ve never seen a porch quite like this, especially downtown.”

He finds downtown loft living both compelling and convenient.

“My friends live extremely close, within five minutes of here. This is a good meeting spot for the weekend. There are events downtown, like Second Fridays, the Christmas parade … This is the spot where we all meet up.”

Joseph pauses, ticking off on his fingers.

“There are eight restaurants within four blocks that I can walk to.”

B

orn in Nashville, Joseph moved to Cullman when his dad was transferred here in 1992. Starting kindergarten that year and graduating from high school in 2004, he’s a product of Cullman City Schools.

When he graduated from Centre College in Danville, KY, he was not particularly concerned that he had no career plans mapped out.

“I had no clue what I would do, but I had a degree in economics,” Joseph says.

“And there has always been something new coming my way.”

In business with Kolby Lawrence, Joseph co-owns Cabin Fever Beverages, with locations in Cullman, Good Hope MAY | JUNE | JULY 2019

41

and Hanceville. He also owns and manages several pieces of commercial and industrial real estate.

Standing on his porch, he can gaze across Fourth Street at the corner lot where the old Bargain Town building – and a theater before that – stood before the 2011 tornado.

Now a neat, grass-covered green space, he and Kolby own and hope to sell.

“We’re open to whatever direction the growth of downtown Cullman takes it,” Joseph says. “We have people looking at dividing it up to build lofts like this one.”

He anchors a lot of faith to downtown.

Heck, he grew up only four blocks away, 42

MAY | JUNE | JULY 2019

and the first house he bought is only six blocks away.

“Downtown,” says Joseph, “is a cool place.”

J

oseph and Kolby were at their property on Fourth Street when they saw the loft across the street, for sale by Mel and Tess Bailey.

“It just kind of happened,” Joseph says.

“This is perfect for you,” Kolby told him, recognizing a good fit when he sees one. Ditto for Joseph.

“I literally put in an offer on the spot,” he says.

Unlike a new pair of shoes ready to wear from the box, the loft he bought in May 2018 would take some work to customize the fit.

Toward that end, one of the first things Joseph did was call his interior decorator friend Amanda Franklin, who works at White Willow with owner Libby Crider.

“Amanda and Libby came over and checked it out,” Joseph says. “They talked me through the modern look I wanted, then pretty much did their own thing.”

It was, he says, an excellent job of mind reading – or style-reading, as the case might be.

Joseph bought the building from former residents Mel and Tess Bailey. Mel rents 1,000 square feet of space in the downstairs storefront for his office, photo at left. The entrance to the loft is to the left of the office, a narrow hallway that leads from the sidewalk to Joseph’s front entrance. The kitchen and an eating area are on the ground floor. One might look at the well equipped kitchen and assume Joseph cooks a lot. “You can fool a bunch of people,” he laughs. “I go out a lot and cook maybe once a week.” His bedroom is located off the long upstairs hallway to the living room and accessed by antique sliding barn doors covered with mirrors. Besides lots of closet space and the master bath, the bedroom also has a sitting area, above.

Before furnishings ever moved in, other changes were in order. Joseph spent four months ripping up baseboards, refinishing the heart pine floors upstairs and painting everything.

The ground floor kitchen was remodeled, its concrete floors repainted from brown to gray. But he left intact all of the old doors and mantel over the living room fireplace.

“I could not take them out,” Joseph says. “It would be a disservice to the space.

They had the feel of local history, and I figured it would be a good mixture, instead of being all modern.”

O

ne of the first things Joseph did when he moved into his loft was ditch his lawnmower. Nary a tear in sight.

He lived in his other house two and a half years. He’s been in the loft only about one year, but it feels far more like home than the house ever did.

Likewise, downtown Cullman feels like home.

“I’ve never had any desire to live somewhere else full time,” Joseph says. “I travel frequently, and the big city appeals to me, but not for the long term. You don’t get friends in the city like you do around here.”

“And from here I can be at Huntsville Airport or the Birmingham Airport, either direction, in 45 minutes. If lived in Birmingham, it could take 30 minutes to get wherever I’m going. Here, I’m within 10 minutes of most anywhere I want to go.”

So the loft is home.

“For the foreseeable future for sure,” Joseph says. “Things change. You never know what next week will bring.”

“But for now I can kick my feet up on the porch wall and enjoy downtown.”

It’s a fit..

Good Life Magazine MAY | JUNE | JULY 2019

43

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1840 Lee Ave SW 256-775-8870 44

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Amanda Shavers, editor and photographer for The Cullman Times, shot this photo of Margaret Jean Jones at her home in Baileyton in 1998. Margaret Jean for years wrote a column for the newspaper titled “Through the Looking Glass.” She was named the Times Distinguished Citizen in 2000.

The ‘monster’ might have tied her down, but it never dragged down Margaret Jean Jones Story by Steve A. Maze

I

met Margaret Jean Jones in 1996 while visiting her Baileyton home to interview her for my former magazine, Yesterday’s Memories. Some common acquaintances had put us in touch with each other because we were both storytellers.

I knew she’d been struck with a rare and crippling disease. I’d never heard of it, and neither had anyone else I knew. And why would we? Less than 100 cases had been diagnosed in the U.S. and only 200 worldwide.

More than an interview, I was on a mission to cheer her up. I never imagined I would be the one getting “cheered up.”

When I walked into her room, Margaret Jean was flat on her back with a small, miniature baton-like stick taped to her fingers. She used the stick to punch the keyboard of her computer which was mounted on a platform across her bed. She occasionally replaced the stick with a hand mirror and angled it to see me.

The monster that had invaded Jones’ body was myositis ossificans progressiva.

Basically it is a hereditary disease in which there is a proliferation of the tissue between muscles, followed by its calcification and eventual bone formation.

Onset of the disease is usually in the first 10 years, and it rarely begins after the age of 20.

The bones in Margaret Jean’s body

were calcifying, literally growing together.

Even though 99 percent of her body was stiff, she was not paralyzed, per se, and still had feeling throughout her body, most of it pain.

As I discovered, the computer had given Margaret Jean her life back. It allowed her to correspond, write books, newspaper articles and church bulletins; and even control her television, telephone and intercom system.

M

argaret Jean was stricken with the disease – for which there is still no definitive treatment much less cure – in 1943 when she was a happy, fun-loving, 7-year-old attending the second grade.

One day she was practicing to be an MAY | JUNE | JULY 2019

45

Indian in a school play and the next she had to tell her teacher her arms wouldn’t work correctly. She couldn’t bend her back nor could she raise either arm above her head, even though she could walk normally at the time.

Her parents, Selmer and Ama Ruth (Ford) Jones, took their daughter to their family doctor who was mystified at the illness.

“The only symptom was a small lump at the base of my spine,” Margaret Jean said. “The family doctor scheduled surgery to remove it.

However, when I went to the hospital a week later the lump had moved all the way up my spine and down the other side, leaving my back stiff and my arms immobilized at the shoulders.”

“The doctor immediately canceled the surgery.”

Over the next several years, she was examined by a number of doctors in Birmingham, including orthopedic specialists.

All of them were frankly mystified.

Margaret Jean remained at school, despite the progression of the mysterious disease – still undiagnosed – and graduated from Fairview High School in 1953.

“The following January, two months short of my 18th birthday, the paralysis struck with excruciating force, one leg and then the other, in less than three months,” she said. “In a matter of weeks my body was too rigid to allow me to sit upright in a wheelchair.”

A

fter this episode Margaret Jean began life as a “horizontal” – one of the many new terms she would learn during her initiation into the world of the severely handicapped.

“I was so pain-wracked at times I was forced to concentrate on trying to literally get through just one minute at a time – 60 seconds, second by second of agony that defies description,” she said.

Powerful painkillers taken around the clock often brought no relief and she had many a sleepless night.

Often during the long days and nights, 46

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she pleaded with God to help her bear the pain, to make it go away before she lost her mind. Finally, she asked God to let her die and relieve her from the suffering.

“But God knew I wasn’t ready for

Margaret Jean’s first book, “Combing Cullman County,” came out in 1971 with a second printing in 1978. “Cullman County Across the Years” was published in 1975. death,” Margaret Jean said. “He was able to see further down the road than I, and he obviously had other plans for me. Tears rolled down my cheeks, but I couldn’t wipe them away.”

Margaret Jean never doubted that God was in control. She may have only been an 18-year-old girl, but she was possessed by an undying faith. The seeds of faith had been sown years earlier when she was 12 and joined Baileyton United Methodist Church. She was active in its youth programs until she became confined to bed.

“Jesus had hung suspended on a cross, stretched out unable to move his legs, arms and head,” Margaret Jean said. “The

picture of him as a suffering Savior was etched into my thoughts.”

S

he was now seeing the world with a hand mirror held by her few flexible fingers. She could not move her head, but by strategically turning the mirror she could see her visitors.

It was about that time that a friend brought her a magazine article describing how the National Institute of Health (NIH, based in Bethesda, MD) was making great strides in medical research.

One of the primary requirements to admission at NIH is that the patient’s disease has a confirmed diagnosis. Margaret Jean’s disease had not been diagnosed even though she had seen numerous doctors for over 13 years.

Her family doctor quickly sent a complete resume of her case to one of the doctors in the article. He also sent X-rays made at various times as the disease had progressed.

Just before Christmas of 1956, her doctor received a letter from a Dr. Bartter stating a tentative diagnosis of myositis ossificans progressiva. The letter also stated that a group of doctors at the clinic, including Dr. Bartter, were very interested in studying the case because it was extremely rare.

The tentative diagnosis proved correct, and Margaret Jean was stunned that the disease is hereditary. A genealogy buff, she had never found any evidence of a relative with a condition that remotely resembled hers. But the most outstanding discovery was that about 50 percent of the victims had short thumbs, as did she.

A

lthough it was her only hope, it was a difficult decision whether to go to NIH for treatment. She worried her loving parents could neither afford the expense nor the time away from their farm for her extended stay. But friends and neighbors collected enough money for the family’s train fare and other expenses.

They arrived at NIH on Jan. 8, 1957, Margaret Jean bringing with her vivid dreams of doing ordinary things people take for granted, like walking into a store or down a church aisle.

She spent 18 weeks there and endured a

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series of operations. Following extensive X-rays centennial celebration and was the first exclusive and tests, it was decided to perform surgery on history book on her native county. the front and back of both arms at the shoulder In 1975, The Cullman Times commissioned in an attempt to increase her to do a series of historical articles for range of motion. a special supplement The operations were in conjunction with performed two weeks the city’s centennial apart, and following the celebration. It became second operation she was the basis for her second able to raise her arm high book “Cullman County enough to touch her eye Across The Years.” with an index finger. The Jones’ third book, doctors were hopeful and “The World In My so was Margaret Jean.

Mirror,” was published Their elation was in 1979. It is an short lived, however. autobiography that The increased range describes the struggles of motion lasted only she has endured, along a matter of days. Even with the many blessings with extensive physical that have come her way. therapy, her arm soon became fixed again, this time with more ot surprisingly, restriction than before.

Margaret Jean was No range of motion humble about her Margaret Jean’s third book tells how she was ever gained on her achievements. triumphed over adversity in her life. In her left arm. New bone “I’m sure many of honor and to inspire others, the Cullman formation occurred at them would have never County Center for the Developmentally an extremely rapid rate. happened without my X-rays revealed new disability, because many Disabled named its adult day service facility bone growth two or three of them were never in the the Margaret Jean Jones Center. weeks after the surgery. dreams I cherished prior Shortly after to my confinement,” Margaret Jean’s 21st birthday, NIH unexpectedly she said. “I probably would never have written announced that she could go home. The surgery the books or realized some of the fulfilling had failed. There was nothing they could do for experiences had fate not stepped in.” her. Her dreams would not come true.

“The credit for whatever I may have accomplished rightfully belongs to my parents and brother, Bob, for their sacrifice and loving ack home, Margaret Jean’s mother support and the continued encouragement of presented her with a couple of books, including family members, friends and church family.

“Learn to Write for Publication.” While very But,” she continued, “I attribute everything to the confident in her abilities, the idea appealed to Lord. I couldn’t have made it without Him.” her. And when a friend brought her a portable Yes, Margaret Jean considered herself typewriter, she tackled the challenge eagerly. blessed, even though her jaws were locked from Much annoyed by the “Why try?” attitude the disease and her family caregivers had to of many people, she wrote something about the blend food to feed her. subject. It eventually became the basis for the One Cullman doctor stopped by to check first article she submitted to a magazine in 1963. on her each time he was in the area. Numerous The article was accepted. others helped in any way they could. As she said, She then wrote a human interest column “I could not go out into the world, so you brought called “Through The Looking Glass” for The the world to me.”

Cullman Times for 13 years.

I saw or spoke with Margaret Jean many She also had numerous articles published in times before her death on March 16, 2009. She national magazines, researched and wrote both never failed to cheer me up. She was one of the a Jones and Ford family history and edited a most beloved, inspiring and intriguing people I cookbook for her church’s fundraising project. have ever met.

Her first book, “Combing Cullman County,” Good Life Magazine was published in 1971 during the county’s

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The brothers Basch Blessed be those fun toys and hard work that bind over generations After Ralph came along and got a little older, he would work in the growing business after school and during the summers. he brothers Basch live in South Soft-spoken and mild-mannered, Vinemont within a mile and a half of he tells a story of himself and a high each other. They could walk to visit, or school football buddy who drive by truck on county decided to hop a freight roads. train in Cullman, ride it to But what’s the fun in Birmingham then sneak that when they can jostle aboard a north-bounder and through the connecting return the same night. woods and fields in “But we got confused and all-terrain vehicles? didn’t know exactly where The third generation we were when we hopped of what’s now Basch off,” Ralph says.

Brothers Powersports, Ends up they were in Nathan, Jared and Trent Tarrant City.

They called a have ready access to friend in Cullman to rescue RZRs, Rangers and other them, but he didn’t arrive fun, off-road toys built before the local police found

by Polaris. the hobos errant and asked The brothers live only some tough questions, like, a few miles from their “How did you boys get parents, Ralph Jr. and here?”

Melody Basch.

“Ahhhh …” Ralph Nathan and Jared Nathan Basch runs the family’ s old endurance racing RZR across the stuttered.

“His brother work for Ralph, and spillway of a pond on his property in Vinemont. dropped us off?”

Melody recently began “Dad,” Jared says, “saved going into the store a lot of stories from us.” on Ala. 157 to work Ralph graduated from The University “All of us worked at the store as inventory. teenagers putting together lawnmowers of Alabama in 1978 with a regretted The Basch family is close. Its and go-karts,” Jared says. “We saw that degree in operations management and, cohesion born of love. Reinforced by fortunately, a concentration in marketing. work ethic in dad and tried to carry proximity at work and home.

“If I had known what I know now that over into everything we’ve done.

But playing together with those …” he says. “What I enjoyed most in “Dad used to make me come to motorized toys in the outdoors also the field was marketing. I didn’t realize work there when I was 8 and assemble contributed to binding this family. Whining operation management is the most boring wheelbarrows,” he adds grinning. gearboxes, revving four-strokes, knobby subject in the world.”

“I believe,” Ralph says, “it was tires slinging mud and suspensions Ralph joined his dad to buy his closer to 10.

Or 12.” contorting over rocks and logs are psalms uncle’s share of the business in ’79. That of unity, peace and happiness. same year he married Melody Haynes, It’s been that way since the kids were athan, Jared and Trent are whom he knew in high school and young. Weekends meant Ralph and the the Basch brothers today. But it was started dating about ‘74. boys loading trailers with four-wheelers brothers Ralph Sr. and Herbert who and heading to off-road courses locally started Basch Brothers. That was 1947. or across the Southeast. Melody was They made harnesses for livestock he original Basch Brothers right there with them. and also sold wagons and agriculture location was on U.S. 278 where Deb’s equipment.

Bookstore is now. In 1983 the first“They transitioned in the mid-1950s gen brothers moved to the corner of At left, Nathan drives Ralph and Jared the as tractors got popular,” Ralph says.

First Street and Third Avenue, where back way to Trent’s nearby property where he “Then that played out, and they switched it remained until it was moved onto its and his wife plan to build their new house. to hardware and building materials.” present location on Ala. 157. The move Story and photos

by David Moore

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“She just fell right in,” Ralph says.

“She went on all of the trips and did all of the outdoor things a mother of boys would do, boating, fishing whatever. She was just one of the gang.”

It wasn’t all play.

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From left to right ... Trent talks to brother Nathan before a race. Ralph, Jared and Nathan went through a woods trail to reach a far shore of Lake Catoma.

With Jared watching, Nathan grabs some air in their old RZR racer. On one of his fields, Nathan can’t resist the temptation of a few donuts ... not, of course, the kind you eat. At a slower pace, Nathan drives past a pond, out enjoying a day with his dad and Jared. At work, Ralph is the boss. But it’s not a dictatorship. “As a team we’ve made decisions on what product lines to take,” Ralph says. “It’s a collaboration. I take the blame for the bone-headed moves.” allowed them the ability to expand, spread their wings.

Though still selling hardware, Ralph Jr. was introduced to Polaris four-wheelers in 1987 and convinced his father to move the business in that direction. So four-wheeler toys were introduced into the family, and today Basch Brothers has been selling Polaris machines longer than any dealer in Alabama.

All three boys believe that the fun toys and accompanying hard work with dad paid dividends.

For instance, for his eighth-grade science project Nathan cut two- and fourstroke engines in half to show their moving parts then explained the difference between 52

MAY | JUNE | JULY 2019

the ignition and exhaust strokes for the one, and the intake, compression, emission, and exhaust strokes for the other.

“The teachers were pretty shocked,” Ralph says.

Nathan studied drafting and design at Wallace State Community College, winning a state competition and finishing ninth nationally. But he decided to carry on in the family business and came to work full time at Basch Brothers after Wallace.

Jared, who did construction during the summers, earned a master’s in criminal justice and crime scene investigation from Auburn Montgomery and initially planned to go into the FBI. Then in 2009 he decided to come into the business with his dad and

Nathan, once again adding “brothers” to the Basch Brothers name.

Trent followed Nathan’s path into drafting but stayed with it and designs engineered flooring systems for Boise Cascade out of Birmingham and drawing house plans on the side.

A

s boys, when not working for Ralph after school, the brothers Basch visited their grandfather’s farm. It was free-ranging fun riding dirt bikes and go-carts through the woods with their cousins Ben and Ross Harrison.

On weekends the brothers loaded up their toys and lit out for fun destinations with Ralph and Melody. But as they left

home and married, those four-wheeling weekends downshifted into low gear.

Enter off-road rally racing in 2012-2016.

Basch Brothers sponsored two souped-up RZRs. Held at Cullman County’s Stony Lonesome OHV Park and Hawk Pride Mountain Off Road in Tuscumbia, the events were four-hour endurance races, covering 120 miles and more over the mountains and through the woods from late afternoon into the night – ideal for the brothers Basch and cousin Ross.

“Who was the fastest?” Trent asks rhetorically. “Me.” Jared, with his experience around powersports mechanics and construction has what his mom calls a MacGyver mindset, making

him a go-to guy on the racing team for figuring out problems and solutions.

“I was the PR man,” Ralph laughs. “And the check writer.”

In Basch family lore, after a wreck during nighttime endurance one night, Trent earned the name “Hit Man” and was awarded round, yellow crash dummy decals.

At the time, teams of two drivers split time behind the wheel, and when the dust got too bad for Nathan during that race, Trent jumped into the drivers seat. He was running hard in third place behind a Florida buddy. Neither knew at the moment that the first-place driver was broken down, out of the race.

After topping a hill, the friend flipped

his RZR into a ditch, headlight pointing backward as he landed.

“I came over the hill doing 40-45 and saw his headlights,” Trent says. “He was getting out onto the track. I threw the brake and cut the wheel. Flipped on my side and hit him.”

And so he was dubbed Hit Man. Trent, in turn, nicknamed the friend “Speed Bump.” They remain friends and Speed Bump credits Hit Man with making him stop smoking. Inhaling hurt his cracked ribs too much.

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o now the boys are married Nathan and his wife have children. But the proximity of their homes makes it convenient for Basch families to stay MAY | JUNE | JULY 2019

53

The Basch fam gathered around Ralph’s old pickup truck for a Christmas photo. From left to right are Nathan, Adriann, Ezra, Ralph, Melody, Preslie, Elysha and Jared; seated at right are Katie and Trent. Photo by Elysha Basch/Meraki Photography. connected, to visit for dinner, an Alabama ballgame or to work on an old car or some other project.

Though away from home several days a week and not working at the store, Trent remains close. It’s rare, he says, for him and at least one brother not to talk every day.

Talk of family closeness and about vandalism and theft by some “kids” in the area, brings up a discussion about the days of the brothers’ youth.

“I don’t think any of us got in major trouble,” Jared says. Laughing, he adds, “We were afraid of Dad.” Ralph rather doubts the fear factor, leaning more towards respect. Plus he credits the family’s closeness and extensive outdoor activities together with keeping his boys out of serious trouble.

This created a “cohesion,” Ralph believes, and the toys played a part.

That’s not to say Basch life is always peaceful. Nathan and Jared can go at each other like cats and dogs. But it’s soon over.

“My wife never understood how we can go to lunch after we’ve been at each 54

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other’s throats at work,” Jared says. “I don’t know how we do it, but it’s always worked out that we are able to separate personal and business.”

Nathan says it goes back to family values, common hobbies and activities.

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he family has grown – but not apart.

“We cook out together,” Ralph says.

“We watch ballgames together. We’re basically at the lake every weekend in the summer boating and doing water sports.”

“We know how blessed we are and thank the Lord every day,” says Melody.

“From the time I had the boys, I prayed they would marry the right women for them – and they did.

“The daughters-in-law are close, too,” she adds. “The three of them get together and do things – and invite me! That’s a great dynamic.”

The families of the daughters-in-law even join the Basches at the lake for the Fourth of July, other holidays and birthdays.

“The whole puzzle is put together perfectly,” Ralph says. “It all fits together.

I don’t want to build us up as a perfect family, there is no such a thing. But I thank God for our blessings.”

That said, he’s grateful to have been able to use the ATVs for the cohesive glue they’ve provided. What would they have spent their time doing without those toys?

“Lord,” laughs Nathan. “I don’t know.

Ask my wife.”

“I’d probably sit around and be bored,” Ralph grins.

Melody has been known to kid Ralph by saying, “The difference between men and boys is not the price of their toys. The difference between men and their toys is the age of their boys!”

That statement has proved to be true.

Nathan and his wife are now passing on this love of the outdoors and ATV enjoyment to their children. Just as their love of recreational riding bonded the three brothers Basch, it’s a good possibility that the next generation will follow suit.

Good Life Magazine

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Story and photos

by David Moore

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ne spring day about 30 years ago, after Ray Buchmann had gotten out of the retread tire business, after their son and daughter had packed off to college, he asked Benton if she wanted to go fishing.

Fishing?

Ray had recently re-adopted his old angling affections and managed to land a key from the Cullman Water Department to the gate for its Eva Road Lake. It was little fished and he enjoyed going there.

“Yes,” Ray said. “Fishing. Would you like to go with me?”

“Well,” Benton replied. “I can take a book ...”

Toting the book was wasted effort.

“I caught that first fish, and Ray took it off the hook and put on another worm,” she laughs.

Catch fish. Husband remove fish from hook. Husband re-bait. Repeat. Together they caught and released about 70 fish that fine day.

“I was,” Ray grins, “pretty busy.”

“All of the fish were bedding. I didn’t even know what that was,” Benton recalls.

“It was the first time I went fishing with him,” (she did go snapper fishing years earlier with her dad – got seasick) “and I have been fishing ever since.”

“She got hooked,” Ray says.

Pun intended.

F

ishing has since taken the couple far and wide. Prominent in the upstairs den of the Buchmanns’ house near East Elementary in Cullman, two large, framed boards display fishing licenses from 15-20 states, Mexico, Canada, the Caribbean and even New Zealand.

They visited the latter in 2004 with former Cullman CPA Marcus “Tut” Thublin, a Birmingham psychiatrist and a Georgia professor.

Despite huge steelhead and trout swimming its glacier-fed waters, New Zealand was a fly-fishing bust because of record flooding that summer. If they waded out too far, their guide warned, rushing currents would wash them away.

“I couldn’t wade at all, it was so rough,” Ray says. “And I had a wading staff and everything else you could possibly have.”

Punctuating that first day of misery, Ray landed an $80 ticket for speeding in a 56

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Fishing with Ray and Benton 65-km (40-mph) zone. The Buchmanns said the heck with the fishing and enjoyed the rest of the week sightseeing.

The speeding ticket, by the way, is displayed with their fishing licenses.

A much more satisfying trip for the Buchmanns was to Katmai Lodge, reached by floatplane in the beautiful wilds of southeastern Alaska. Recommended by friends who have fly fished worldwide, there Ray and Benton found huge schools of salmon and steelhead that swam up the river to spawn, attracting not only anglers but eagles and bears.

The Buchmanns’ love of fishing had blossomed into fly fishing when their son booked them into a school on Oregon’s Deschutes River in 1995. They spent hours

with instructors learning the back and forth, 2 o’clock-10 o’clock casting rhythm.

“The instructors said it really doesn’t matter what ‘time’ you position the rod at, you just feel it,” says Benton, who took to the art like a fish to water. That included the basics of tying flies, which she became very proficient at doing.

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ever one to shy away from wheeling and dealing, Ray once found a tackle dealer in Cancun who had trouble acquiring fly reels. He worked out a deal to swap reels in exchange for a local fishing guide.

The dealer arranged for two guys to meet the Buchmanns at the shop early the next day and drive them to meet the guide.

Benton Buchmann and her husband Ray have had a lot of luck in Duck River Reservoir since it opened to public fishing in 2018. A fishing trip this spring, picture here, was not so lucky. The engine conked out on them just after launching. That mishap has done nothing to curb the lake’s growing popularity with anglers.

“We were a little leery,” Rays says. “We were picked up before daylight by two guys who could not speak English, and they were driving us through the slums and then the jungle.”

It was unnecessary worry. They arrived at a beautiful lagoon and met their amiable guide who fished to feed his wife, eight kids and mother-in-law.

He took the Buchmanns fly fishing in a scenic but tricky place mined with mangrove roots with a jungle canopy overhead that Tarzan would appreciate.

“Ray, I’m hung,” Benton soon said.

Ray took the light rod and exclaimed, “There’s a fish on here!”

It jumped and they glimpsed a big snook with its distinctive black lateral line.

“It was a beauty … and then it broke the line,” Ray says.

Ray, who had caught a tarpon on a fly before, was naturally disappointed. But not as much as their guide.

“He was hoping to get that fish to feed his family,” Ray says.

They moved on to other locations, however, and did well. The Buchmanns awarded the guide with lots of fish to take home to his big family.

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he Buchmanns’ all-time favorite fishing hole? It’s no place exotic, and Ray and Benton say it in unison: Thornton Lakes at Hokes Bluff.

The series of six lakes – up to 20 acres in size – were developed by the late Butch

Thornton and stocked primarily with bass that had grown to lunker status.

Thornton charged $100 a day to fish there; that included use of an old aluminum boat and battery. Ray promised to send him tons of business if Thornton never raised the rates on them.

Both parties came out happy.

“I got my first 8-pounder there. It was fun.” Ray says, adding a 14.35-pounder holds the record there.

Thornton’s rental cabin was rough, but the Buchmanns helped clean it up. They also helped on other projects, such as patching up a dam and building a spillway.

When aquatic grass threatened to overtake the ponds, the couple came to rescue with a load of carp that eat the grass.

MAY | JUNE | JULY 2019

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Benton taught fly tying at “Becoming an Outdoorswomen,” a biannual program sponsored by the Game and Fish Division of the Alabama Department of Conservation at the 4H complex on Lay Lake in Shelby County. She also took her classes fly fishing there. Other instructors taught some 50 courses, from archery to backing up boat trailers to Dutch-oven cooking.

A sampling of the many flies Benton has tied are, from left; a wooly bugger and two ants, a minnow and a Schuman cricket, and a shrimp.

“We’ve been over there so many times,” Benton says. “It’s so worth it.”

On top of the great fishing, Thornton built a new cabin where they stay.

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he Buchmanns’ all-time favorite fishing story took place over the course of at least 12 years right here in Cullman.

Called the Childhaven Fishing Rodeo, they started it in 1999 with Joel and Amanda Smith of Smith Farms and Dr. Jim Wright, head of the facility that offers shelter and services to children from troubled homes.

“All of the books and magazines I picked up said to get kids outdoors, expose them to fishing,” Ray recalls of hatching the plan. “I told Jim, and he said it sounded like a good idea.”

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An army of kids showed up the first time, and it grew every year. Participants fished all morning, ate lunch and fished some more. Ray recruited numerous fishing buddies to help bait hooks and pull off fish.

“And keep kids from getting hooks stuck in each other,” Benton laughs.

Ray lined up the annual rodeos at private lakes in the county. He struck a deal with a hatchery to stock catfish.

Bait companies made donations. Others donated rods and reels. Grocery stores and Coke gave food and drinks.

“Everybody in Cullman who could helped with it,” Benton says. “To see a child who had never caught a fish before, catch one ...”

The Buchmanns were having so much fun with the Childhaven kids that Ray started a drive to raise $14,000 to send them all to Disney World.

“What if you don’t raise enough money?” Benton asked.

“Well,” he replied in true fishing form, “I guess I’m on the hook then.”

No worries. He drummed up $21,000 from donors across the county, leaving enough to put down on a van Childhaven needed.

As one might guess, the rodeo is Jim’s favorite fishing story, too.

I

t’s only fitting that favorite fishing story occurred in the Buchmanns’ hometown.

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Ray once called the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and inquired where he might go to catch the fish of a lifetime. He was told to try Stick Marsh, a shallow, 6,500-acre impoundment in the St. Johns Water Management. He contracted with Mike Grober, a local guide, who guided him right. The 11 lbs. 6 oz. “hog” Ray caught is his personal record for a largemouth. It made the Florida Bass Hall of Fame. Not surprisingly, for some years after that the Buchmanns made annual trips to Stick Marsh.

Years ago, an avid angler and friend taught Ray a few tricks of the trade in regard to making fly rods, and for a dozen years or more Ray did that as an almost profitable hobby. Using graphite he ordered and working out of his basement shop, he meticulously constructed 15-25 rods a year, selling them in spiffy cases. “It kept him sane,” Benton laughs.

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Ray is the son of Millard and Nell Brindley Buchmann, who in 1934 started All Steak in Pulaski, TN. He moved the restaurant and his family to Cullman in 1938.

He also played tenor sax in his band, The Millard Buchmann Orchestra. Lots of times, he came home late from dances, picked up Ray and they drove to Lake Guntersville to fish at first light.

Besides fishing, Ray shared his dad’s love of music and played tenor sax with the Larks.

Graduating from Cullman High in 1955, he played basketball at St. Bernard College for two years before earning a degree in pre-med from The University of Alabama.

Daughter of Conradine and Alfred “Pokey” Engel, Mary Benton laughs and says she grew up in Cullman’s Historic District before it was historic. A 1960 grad of CHS, Benton majored in history and minored in English at Stevens College in Missouri, graduating in 1964 That year, back home, she worked the register at All Steak, then owned by her uncle and aunt, Ewing and Lucile Wallace. It was at the register that she and Ray first caught each other’s eye. He was there on a date with her best friend.

Soon dating and soon hooked, they married in 1965. However, fishing together remained about 25 years off.

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he Buchmanns initially lived in a mobile home on the farm of Ray’s Uncle Fritz Schuman.

It was fine for the couple, but after Ray Brindley Buchmann was born, it got crowded fast.

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61

The Buchmann family got together for this photo they provided. With Ray Buchmann, front are, from left, Evan Brindley, Margie Brindley, Julian Brindley, Benton Buchmann, son Dr. Ray Brindley, daughter Anna Gilbert, Nathan Gilbert, Spencer Gilbert and Mary Joy Gilbert.

The young family moved into a house near East Elementary designed

by Benton’s architect uncle, Spencer Speegle. They were living there when Anna was born in 1967.

“We figured we would move but later decided, ‘What the heck,’” Ray says. “We were nice and close to East Elementary, and the kids could easily walk.”

Since age 12, Ray had worked his dad’s Sinclair station in town, where Millard started retreading tires during World War II. He opened a tire store in 1954 next to what’s now Vintage West, later moving it to where Walgreen’s is now. After college, Ray joined him fulltime at Buchmann Tire and Retreading.

When Millard retired, Ray took over as president and saw the company literally inflate. Operating as Peoples Tires, at its peak in 1987 Ray’s business had 11 locations in North Alabama and Winchester, TN. They churned out 1,000 retreads a day, six days a week, to become the third largest retread company in the U.S. 62

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Ray traveled a lot as a board member and president of the National Tire Dealer and Retreading Association. He learned to fly and bought his own plane.

Ray also stayed involved back home.

During the 1970s he was twice elected president of the Cullman Area Chamber of Commerce. In March 2018 he was honored with the chamber’s Emma Marie Eddleman Citizenship Award.

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ay’s most recent civic project was – not too surprisingly – successfully lobbying for top-notch boat ramps and ample parking at Duck River Reservoir.

Initially, plans called for enough parking for maybe a dozen vehicles and boat trailers.

“Stick Marsh has spaces for 100, and people will fist fight for them,” Ray says of his favorite fishing hole in Florida.

“Ray stood up for anglers,” Benton says. “He put in a bunch of time on that project.”

In recognition for his effort, last July, when the lake opened to public fishing, Ray and Benton were given the honor

of launching the first boat. Since its impoundment in 2015, the reservoir had been stocked with bream and mostly Florida strain bass, and the Buchmanns were tickled to catch and release 40 of the promising young bass the first day.

Furthermore, Duck River Reservoir has provided a surprise with a strong population of crappie that have taken off since some of the fish got in the lake when it flooded.

In March, the Buchmanns went to Dauphin Island for a week with their daughter and her family. They spent a half day fishing from a pontoon with a guide and had a blast.

Any epic fishing plans for the summer?

“We’ll probably go out where we were today,” Benton says. That means Duck River Reservoir. But that’s fine by her.

“I go where he goes,” she says of the man who took her fishing that spring day 30 years ago. With a laugh Benton adds, “And wherever the boat goes.”

Good Life Magazine

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A girl and a horse find their perfect sync and championship speed

Story by Seth Terrell Photos by Kim Sharit Photography On a warm August night last summer at Crawford Arena in Montgomery, 14-year-old Ainsley Irani of Cullman sat quietly atop her barrel racing horse, Quick, doing her best to contain her excitement as she warmed him up for the big race ahead.

Quick, a 16-year-old gelding who became part of the Irani family a little over a year ago, did not seem overly anxious about the run he was about to make, but as Ainsley brought him toward the arena alleyway, both rider and horse seemed to sense something special was about to occur.

What happened next ...

Following Ainsley and Quick’s championship run the night before, the next day, shown here, they ran in two more events during the Alabama Open Horse Association state meet last summer in Montgomery.

...W

hat happened next is that sublime instance in which two partners, a girl and her horse, are in perfect sync, bursting into the arena like dancers, precise and graceful, each with his and her specific role to play.

They flew around the cloverleaf pattern that stretched out before them with Quick leaning at a near 45-degree angle as he approached each barrel, careful, especially with Quick’s long stride, to keep each barrel standing upright as they traversed the red-dirt arena floor that stood between Ainsley and a championship buckle.

While Ainsley’s father, Rustom, waited quietly for what seemed like an eternity, her mother, Ann, was yelling every word of encouragement she could think of, hoping such yelling would give her daughter that extra little nudge of speed required to be a champion.

“But there’s no point in yelling,” Ainsley says jokingly as she sits across from her dad at Berkley Bob’s Coffee House on a late winter morning remembering that night six months prior.

“It’s all muscle memory at that point. I’m not thinking, just reacting.”

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Quick shows off his championship ribbon, which is technically his. For safekeeping, he allows Ainsley to hang it in her bedroom at the Iranis’ home near Cullman Regional Medical Center.

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insley and Rustom arrange and rearrange a trio of empty coffee cups on the table at Berkley Bob’s, demonstrating the particulars of the cloverleaf pattern of barrels, using their fingers to direct Ainsley’s now memorable path as she brought her horse “home” that night in Montgomery.

“I kicked a lot on the way home,” Ainsley says. “A lot of kicking. It’s all about being fast. Very fast.”

“And in control, too,” Rustom adds gently, with the same gleam in his eyes as his daughter.

With such a combination of speed and control, Ainsley knew as she and Quick rounded the third barrel that she would most likely place.

She didn’t let up. She brought her horse home, all the way past the timer, just as her dad has coached her, for a warp speed time of 15.795 seconds – the winning time among 87 runners of all ages.

The championship buckle was hers, along with an impressive wooden plaque in the shape of the state proclaiming her

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Ainsley and Quick spent three days last summer working out at Martha Josey’s Barrel Racing clinic in Texas. Photo by Stefanie Yoder Photography. the 2018 Alabama Open Horse Association State (AOHA) Cloverleaf Barrels Champion. In a photograph of the barrel racing champion and her horse, Ainsley stands smiling, with her long brown hair falling from her cowgirl hat. And if you were to look close, you may even notice that Quick seems to have a distinct grin himself, posing in a multi-colored ribbon.

she has so aptly applied to her racing abilities.

For the last three years she has been racing barrel horses, first with

“I tried dancing and guitar and basketball,” Ainsley says. “But horses and now barrel racing have my heart.”

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insley’s 15.795-second win was but a blip in time. Only a .483-second difference separated her and the 10th place finisher.

But behind the perfect coming-together of such a small moment are hours of training, an unwavering or many little support of family and friends and days of girls, there is often a professional coaching. “horse phase,” that lasts When Ainsley first for a while and fades. got Quick, they had For a few little girls like some frustrating growing Ainsley, that phase is no pains to sort through. phase at all but a dream She and Quick were not Proud of her championship buckle, Ainsley’s goal is to win more. pursued to the point that it immediately on the same becomes a way of life. page, not yet thriving in Ainsley, now a the Cullman County Saddle Club and that unspoken serendipity where horse teenager perhaps to the disbelief of her then with the Alabama Little Britches and rider seem to know what the other is parents, has been riding horses since Rodeo Association before more recently thinking. age 3. becoming the Youth Barrels Reserve “You got to keep working,” Ainsley She first got her start with Western Champion with the North Central says with the certainty and rhythm of a Pleasure horses under the instruction of Alabama Horse Association. young rider who has recited those words Margaret Kontogeorge of the Cullman It was through the latter that she hundreds of times to her horse and herself.

County Saddle Club. It’s the experience earned a trip to the AOHA races in “Don’t get frustrated. Don’t give up.” with this high-performing breed of horses Montgomery.

The long hours of training began that Ainsley credits for the horsemanship

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Not including quiet time together, Ainsley and Quick spend about an hour and a half riding and another hour grooming and tacking five days a week during decent weather. They are, says Ann, pretty much best of friends. Ainsley is a ninth-grade home school student. with local racer and family friend Jessica McHan, who serves as Ainsley’s instructor and often accompanies her to rodeos. Then Ainsley had the opportunity to attend world-renown barrel racer Martha Josey’s Barrel Racing clinic in Karnack, Texas.

It was there that she and Quick started to get in sync and develop what Ainsley hopes will be a relationship that will one day lead her to the NFR – the National Finals Rodeo.

orse and rider.

Speed and control.

Grace and toughness.

These are all combinations any successful barrel racer must have. But in Ainsley’s case, none of her memorable experiences would have been possible without the support of another duo: her parents.

Rustom came to Alabama in 1998 from Hollister, Calif., and eventually married Ann, who hails from Cullman.

H

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“There’s no one in our family who has horses,” Rustom says, shaking his head at the thrilling unlikelihood of the whole dream. And though Ann’s family was acquainted with the rural, farming life, according to Rustom they believed, “If you had an animal, it had to have a job!”

The joy of racing may not constitute a job, per se, but the family commitment required certainly involves work. Rustom – who spent years as a commercial pilot and is now a cargo pilot – is right at home flying 747s around the globe, but backing a gooseneck horse trailer and learning to smoothly operate a dually pickup truck came as a challenge. Sometimes it is still.

Rustom also had to learn the finer points of helping his daughter care for her horse, even taking up casual riding himself. But there is also choosing the right supplements, a lot of brushing, securing the splint boots around the horse’s legs and “tacking up” Quick before each race.

Ann, a nurse, is the family’s organizer: on race day she is concerned with keeping everyone in the family on task. And reminding her daughter to do her best, to stay in control … sometimes screaming those reminders at the top of her lungs as her daughter flies past the timer.

A

insley Irani’s barrel racing career in some ways is just getting started.

Though she hopes to one day be an occupational therapist, and definitely dreams of winning a NFR championship, for now she’s got her eyes set on one more barrel. One more race. One more buckle.

She will return to Martha Josey’s clinic this summer to continue to polish her skills and continue with Quick to ride fast, very fast. And of course, thanks to support of her mother and father, ride with control, too.

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Out ‘n’ About

If you were out and about on March 8 and visiting the North Alabama Agriplex in Cullman, chances are you were attending Little Farmers Preschool Farm Animal Babies, one of the ongoing programs at the facility. And chances are – whether you’re a kid or a parent – you got a smile on your face. Colt Daniel, above, leads a sometimes stubborn lamb named Daisy at the outdoor pavilion where the program was held. A number of the farm animals that day came from 4D Farm in Welti, owned by Colt’s mom and dad, Rusty and Beth. Hazel Whip, below, traveled from Gardendale and got to feed this goat. More photos are on the following pages.

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Rachel Dawsey of the Agriplex Foundation, above, reads “Big Red head outside to where the animals are waiting to be petted. Clockwise of baby chicks drew a lot of attention. Piper, a friendly farm dog, gets Fisher Grace of Vinemont is all bright-eyed over a cuddly the Shetland pony her mother brought

Barn� to the youngsters and their parents and grandparents before they from upper left ‌ Haddie Exum of Falkville pets Daisy. A tub full some loving from Jenna Kate Newsome of Cullman. Five-year-old tan bunny. And, at left, Navi Jane Daniel loves Coconut, from 4D Farms. Photos by David Moore.

Postcards

The first incarnation of Cullman First Methodist Church – located on 1st Avenue West, between 1st and 2nd Streets – was destroyed by the fire of 1893. The second building, the pictured above, was constructed at 324 3rd Ave. East – site of present church – and stood until 1923. It was replaced by the stone structure below, built at a cost of $100,000. The building underwent repairs after serious damage in the tornado of 2011. Postcards provided by Cullman County Museum.

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