Rambling The Southland

As many of you know that follow me on Facebook, and other sources online and even in person, I travel a lot. In fact, I have made it my mission to visit all 67 counties in Alabama within the next year. Somewhere in that timeframe I intend to visit a lot more of Mississippi as well.

More than one person has asked me why, are you doing that?

Well, it goes like this. As many who know me know, I have a fascination for history. Now at different times I have interest in different things. Plus, I have an overwhelming interest in photography. Now, put the two together and guess what you come up with? I have an almost unquenchable interest in taking photographs of things from the past.

Living in Monroe County, Alabama I have seen the towns of Frisco City, Repton, Peterman, Tunnel Springs, Beatrice and so forth pretty much dry up in my lifetime. I mean there are still people there but there are basically just rows of rotting down buildings that are for the most part falling in. I guess it had never even dawned on me that this was a problem in other places. Not sure why, but it just never seemed to really click.

As many know I also fly drones and love old Fire Towers. A couple of years ago I started on a project to locate and do a drone video of as many of those old Fire Towers as I could find. I don’t know why but even with that I had no clue as to how many were standing still in the State of Alabama nor the condition, they were in.

As I started to travel and get photos of those towers. I also started to notice how many old churches that there are standing that are abandoned or are on the verge of being abandoned. It was like a light bulb went off in my head I guess you could say. It is like most small towns you go into there is one or two old churches normally that were founded in the mid to late 1800’s that are just sitting there.

Then as I rode through the towns, I was familiar with and for some reason I started to really notice how many buildings were vacant and rotting down it really started to hit me. These are going away fast. The buildings, the churches, and the fire towers. They are all going away at an alarming rate. 

That is when my mission I guess you would call it became clear to me. I am retired. I have less and less responsibilities. I have my health. I have decent vehicles, and I have decent equipment to document this stuff with. I am not wealthy by any stretch of the imagination but by managing reasonably well I have the resources to travel and do it. 

Here is my Dodge Caravan that is converted into a sleeper van. It has AC and an almost full sized bed so that I can sleep comfortably. I also have a small cooler sized refrigerator. It is quite comfortable and is ideal for most excursions.

So that leads me to where I am now. I am on a mission to travel our beloved Southland and document as much of it as I can. Churches, fire towers, stores, water towers, other places of business and anything else interesting I see along the way.

As many know I am the founder and moderator of the group “The Good Ole Days of Monroe County Al.”.  I love that group. It is a great group, and it has done well. It however as was created is for Monroe County Alabama and thus I wanted it to remain that way.

I quickly realized that doing what I wanted to do was going to cause me to do a lot out of Monroe County. One visit to Mississippi made me realize that it was going to be more than just Alabama. Thus, Jackson’s Ramblings came into being. Then my slogan, “Rambling the Southland and Beyond.” Well, that seemed to get it going. Then when I hit on a slogan, immediately I thought Facebook group. So, I named the Facebook Group, “Rambling the Southland and Beyond.” That way anything documented would fit the category.

There have been many contributors who have a like desire of photographing old, unusual, and or interesting things, that have shared and continue to share on the group. I hope that as time goes on that those and more will continue to share. If you area reading this and are one of those you are greatly appreciated.

At the time of this writing the group has 2740 or so members and is growing many weeks at the rate of 50 to 100 a week. It was created in June of 2022. My only hope is to see the group grow to how ever big it can grow. Tens of thousands would be incredible.

I also love to write. As those who take time to read my writing can readily see I have a lacking in writing skills. I aways joke and say that they only thing that kept me from doing great in high school was elementary school. I am the first to admit that I have issues with grammar and punctuation. However, I like to feel like that I make up for that with desire and determination.

With all of that said, there is a wealth of places, buildings, and other things that are standing today that in a very few years will no longer be standing. For the years I have left, and I hope it is a lot, I intend to take photos of those things, document them as best I can, and write about them as time allows. 

It would be incredible to be able to fund the travel, and equipment, to do this in some way while doing it. I do not have a large enough audience for any business or group to pay me sponsorship. My viewership on my blog is too small for the ads associated with it to make me money, or at least for this time. I have not updated my Youtube channel in a while as well. It takes a lot of time and effort to keep it all up. Some weeks I drive 500 plus miles or more. Sometimes I spend a night in my van some place to keep from having to stay in a hotel or drive home. Then there are hundreds of photos to look at figure out where they were taken, organize them and then file. It is a labor of love but also almost a full time job.

Hopefully in the future this can change. I plan to try to write more blog posts as I travel and interact more that way. Hopefully I can go back to doing more videos as well.

Thanks, to all who have supported me in this endeavor, and I look forward to meeting others along the way who have like interests.

Come join me as I Ramble the Southland and Beyond.