Tales From the MoJo Road –
By Glynn Wilson –

COULTERVILLE, Calif. – So in the interest of being “honest” and “unmerciful” as a writer – the sage advice to a young rock journalist from Philip Seymour Hoffman as Cream magazine editor Lester Bangs in the film “Almost Famous” – let me just say here that this is not my first experience living, writing and practicing American journalism in a small town.

As we were holding our weekly discussions at the Old Johnny Haigh Saloon on Main Street this weekend, our version of a church and a town hall here, in the midst of the local gossip someone scolded me to remember that this is a “small town.” Like I didn’t already know that or had no experience in small towns before.

The truth is I do have experience living in and covering news in small towns, perhaps most significantly the small town of Bay Minette, Alabama in 1984-85, the site of my first cub news reporting job as a professional newspaper staff writer.

This is my mug shot from my first newspaper reporting job at The Baldwin Times in Bay Minette, Alabama. Photo by Rod Duran

Of course I’ve written about this before, in the New American Journal, on Facebook and in my memoir. You can get a copy of the paperback on Amazon for $15. It tells many stories about how I learned to make a difference covering news and making democracy work.

Jump On The Bus: Make Democracy Work Again

Before I get to the details, let’s just say that thinking back on my experience there reminds me of what happened to Dr. Ben Stone played by Michael J. Fox in the 1991 American romantic comedy “Doc Hollywood.” Like him, I was actively recruited to become a permanent resident of the town by the townsfolk. He did fall in love and gave up a lucrative practice in plastic surgery in Hollywood to move back to Grady.

I was already in love and eventually moved on, not to Hollywood exactly but to the front page of the Sunday New York Times and ultimately California.

What was similar in our experiences? There was a committee of folks who got together and tried to lure me to become a permanent resident of the town.

I don’t recall the town’s population at the time, but it was on the cusp of a growth boom because the beaches in Gulf Shores to the south had gotten noticed by developers in the aftermath of publicity from Hurricane Frederick in 1979. According to the 2020 census, Bay Minette now boasts a population of about 8,000.

I also did a stint between 1989 and 1993 in Gulf Shores, which at the time had a permanent resident population of about 5,000. In 2020, it was about 15,000, three times the size.

I can’t recall if Bay Minette had a bar. Mostly we hung out in Mobile across the bay for that, or Judge Roy Bean in Fairhope or the Pink Pony Pub or Flora-Bama Lounge at the beach. There were a couple of restaurants and a bar at the country club, where a significant related scene comes to mind.

In the movie, Julie Warner plays Vialula or “Lou” – a tomboyish ambulance driver living in the small town of Grady – a single mother and law student. Doc Stone is fixed up with Lou, who is tasked with getting him to fall in love with her and become the town’s new doctor. There is a scene where they kiss in a canoe while watching the holiday fireworks in town, maybe the Fourth of July.

In my story, there was the daughter of the Chamber of Commerce president. It was so long ago I don’t recall names and wouldn’t reveal them if I did. There was a Christmas Party at the Holly Hills Country Club in Bay Minette, I recall, and my fiancé was back in Birmingham for the holidays. For the sake of the story, let’s call my girl Lou too. They actually looked a lot alike.

At this party, she was wearing a stunning, low cut red dress, which really set off her curly red hair. After quite a few glasses of wine, she finally just sort of threw herself at me. One of her breasts slipped out of the dress and she nearly tripped and fell. I caught her and prevented her fall, and we almost kissed. But I was engaged to another, so I demurred and swiftly left the party to save any embarrassment, going back to my small apartment in town.

A couple of months later, I was recruited away to work for a daily newspaper in North Alabama. The editor of the chain of twice weekly newspapers could not come up with the budget to match the pay offer. So I left town and headed north of Birmingham.

But I recall there were news controversies too in the small town of Bay Minette. Much of my job covering politics and legal news involved covering the courthouse, which was right across the street from the newspaper office. Not long after I arrived, Governor George Wallace – in his final term in office – appointed a new District Attorney, a media hound lawyer named David Whetstone. In one of the most prominent cases he tried, and I covered, there was a murder with a ball peen hammer.

We sort of sensationalized the coverage of the case since it involved a feud between two actual hillbilly families from the far north part of the county in the hills and swamps of Baldwin County. A young man from one family fell in love with a young girl from the other family. This was also sort of a Shakespearean tragedy like “Romeo and Juliet,” which I may have mentioned in the coverage. In the headline and lead we referred to the case as being like the Hatfields and the McCoys, the famous feuding families in West Virginia and Kentucky by the Tug Fork of Big Sandy River.

In Baldwin County, we had the Tombigbee River. I can’t recall all the details of the case, but someone killed another by hitting them on the head with a ball peen hammer. I do recall sneaking a picture of the woman on the witness stand through the courthouse door window. Cameras were not allowed.

One of the patriarchs of one of the families stormed into the newspaper office one day in an old black suit and hat like those worn by Amish people. He demanded a meeting with the editor. He was offended by our sensational coverage. We pointed out to him that it was the DA who painted the picture of the families in his opening arguments to the jury. Our excuse was, I was just quoting the prosecuting attorney.

I heard he showed up in the DA’s office in the courthouse too after that to complain. So for the remainder of the trial, the DA and the newspaper toned it down and we were more careful in our coverage.

As the story goes, this may have been the only job in my life where I got a party with a cake before leaving town.

There were controversies in Gulf Shores too. Some I write about in the book. Suffice it to say, when I left there to go back to Birmingham in 1993 to work with photographer Spider Martin for a time, and then back to grad school in Tuscaloosa, there was no party. No cake. Just lots of drinks at the Pink Pony Pub and the Flora-Bama Roadhouse Lounge at the beach. Now more famous than ever. There were many great fans who were sad to see me go. And a few powerful, political assholes who were glad to get me off the story.

We live and learn. These days it’s probably harder, mainly because people in places without much in the way of credible news rely on spoken gossip and rumors, and of course far too much on what people post and say on Facebook.

Whatever. Onward and upward always.

See you down the MoJo Road on YouTube.

___
If you support truth in reporting with no paywall, and fearless writing with no popup ads or sponsored content, consider making a contribution today with GoFundMe or Patreon or PayPal.