Unfurling My Crimson Carpet in Alabama
It turns out nobody knows what’s in a Yellowhammer, the house drink at Galette’s, A Gameday Tradition. What’s outside of a Yellowhammer, though, is a barely reusable plastic cup that now sits inexplicably in my apartment in Chicago, a tombstone from an excursion into Alabama, a state I never expected to visit.
I never planned to visit all 50 states just for the sake of it, because I didn’t see any value of showing up somewhere, scooping its dirt, and knowing nobody. The flip side of this, though, is that I implicitly assume I only need one friend to wrench open a new place for me.
My pal Harry is in grad school in Tuscaloosa, so I presumed the entire University of Alabama would welcome me with open arms when I visited him. I expected the football team, the marching band, and all of the fraternity brothers to put on the song and dance to grant me the pledge’s-eye-view of SEC Gameday.
Growing up in New York, I skipped out on American regionalism. I have been surrounded by people living in or visiting the Northeast. Even now in Chicago, most of my friends have spent time on the East Coast, enjoying its old houses, bad weather, and fall foliage. I never fully appreciated the ties that bind and what brings people home, stoking local allegiances in places like like Tuscaloosa.
