Category Archives: Alabama

Six Flags Over Birmingham?

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Six Flags Over Birmingham?

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August 14, 2003

It may be hard to fathom, but In its earliest days Birmingham was an entertainment magnet attracting seekers of frivolity. “Developers were eager to cash in,” explains Regina Ammon, assistant archivist at the Birmingham Public Library, as she previews her August 20 Brown Bag Lunch Series lecture, “Birmingham’s Turn-of-the-Century Resorts” at the downtown library. “It seemed the way developers worked then was that they found some sort of scenic spot and made that the core of the new neighborhood.” As a result, such fancy retreats sparked a population boom, as Birmingham’s resident count jumped from 3,000 in 1880 to more than 26,000 by 1890. Ammon will include an in-depth presentation of 50 slide images as she recounts the glory days when posh resorts dominated Avondale, East Lake, West Lake, and Lakeview Parks.

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A turn-of-the-century photograph of of a young girl enjjoying a swim at East Lake Park. This former resort area and others will be discussed at the Birmingham Public Library’s lecture, “Birmingham’s Turn-of-the-Century Lake Resorts,” on August 20.

Today, Highland Golf Course occupies what was once Lakeview Park. By damming up springs in the area, a lake was formed that included an island where operas were staged. The dam is still visible directly behind the water hazard at the top of the course. The resort’s centerpiece was the Lakeview Pavilion, featuring a swimming pool in the basement beneath a dance floor, skating rink, and bowling alley. A 72-room, two-story hotel was built in 1887, and visited by Presidents Grover Cleveland and Benjamin Harrison. Later, the hotel began to lose patrons when visitors started flocking to East Lake Park. It eventually closed and became the Southern Female Institute, which burned to the ground a year later. The pavilion was finally torn down in 1900 to make way for the golf course.

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The Lakeview Trolley

East Lake Park’s growing popularity centered around its proud billing as “Dixie’s Most Popular Playground.” A 34-acre lake, originally dubbed Lake Como, was added in 1887. Between the late 1880s and early 1950s, East Lake Park offered a zoo, a hotel, a roller coaster, a miniature railroad, and an amusement ride called the “human roulette wheel,” which featured giant cup-and-saucer seats.

Located on the Bessemer Superhighway, West Lake Park was reportedly an early 1900s gambling mecca. It included the Pineview Resort Beach, which is said to have been as breathtaking as anything along the Gulf Coast. Avondale Park was the site of Birmingham’s first zoo, which included an elephant named Miss Fancy that reportedly escaped from her cage occasionally. Legend has it that Miss Fancy could be found hanging around Avondale School as thrilled children fed her their lunches.

The lecture is free and begins at noon. Call 226-3610 for details. —Ed Reynolds

America Celebrates 50 Years of Slavery to TV

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2003-07-31 tracking Food and Drink section

America Celebrates 50 Years of Slavery to TV

 

This year marks the 50th anniversary of two products that, when introduced into American culture in 1953, spelled doom for one of society’s most revered traditions—the family meal. A compact publication called TV Guide appeared on supermarket shelves the same year that an invention called the “television dinner” began flying off those same shelves into grocery carts. With a television manual and accompanying tiny feast to determine the weekly schedule for preempting dinner conversations, mealtime was never quite the same. Little, wobbly tables were erected in the family den where televisions usually resided, and Mom served up an innovative delicacy called the Swanson TV Dinner. Divided into three separate compartments, the aluminum trays offered space-age, defrosted food that was like nothing ever previously consumed: alien-green, wrinkled peas, pasty mashed potatoes topped with a tiny puddle of gravy, and slices of turkey (white and dark meat). A fourth compartment was soon added to accommodate dessert, usually a serving of gooey apple cobbler the size of a silver dollar. The original Swanson box was modeled after a television set, with simulated wood-grain and volume and channel controls on the cardboard packaging.

 

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The Stuff of Dreams: With a package modeled after a television set, the TV dinner took America by storm in 1953.

According to Swanson executive Gerry Thomas, the idea for a TV dinner was hatched when Swanson, an agricultural commodities company, ended up with a glut of turkeys in 1952. The company challenged employees to come up with an idea to get rid of the excess birds. While on a Pan American Airlines flight, Thomas was inspired by the small aluminum serving trays the flight attendants dispensed to passengers at mealtime. The company gambled on Thomas’ bold idea by creating 5,000 TV dinners for a trial run. Before the year was out, they had sold 10 million.

The real winner in this new age of convenience was Mom. Casting aside the shackles of greasy, confining aprons and sweltering kitchens, housewives everywhere reveled in the convenience of throwing dinner on the table in 15 minutes. They were capable of satisfying even the most finicky of appetites once Swanson expanded its entree choices to include meat loaf, fried chicken, and Salisbury steak. With the advent of microwave ovens, things only got easier as Mom punched the timer to three minutes with one hand and turned the pages of her TV Guide with another. —Ed Reynolds

The Jet Set

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2003-04-24 tracking Automobiles section

The Jet Set

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Hurley Haywood has been racing automobiles, namely Porsches, for more than 30 years. Having won the 24 Hours of Le Mans three times and the 24 Hours of Daytona five times, Haywood is revered as one of the greatest endurance racing champions ever. “Because I’ve won Le Mans so many times, when I walk down the street [in Europe], people come up and ask me for my autograph,” says Haywood. “Whereas in the States, nobody knows me unless I’m in a racetrack environment.” The racing champion’s cool, professional demeanor doesn’t mask his excitement as he preps his Brumos Porsche Daytona Prototype for the Rolex 250 Grand American race on Sunday, May 18, the first public event at the new Barber Motorsports Park racetrack.

“It’s a fantastic facility,” gushes Haywood, who also serves as chief instructor at the track’s Porsche Driving Experience, a driving school that leases the track several days each week (after moving from the world-renowned Sebring and Road Atlanta racetracks). “We haven’t had a brand new [road racing] facility built in the United States in probably 20 years. And when I first laid my eyes on that racetrack I knew it was going to be a special place. . . . Technically, it is one of the most difficult racetracks I’ve ever been on anywhere in the world.” The 2.3-mile road course has been compared to Europe’s finest road tracks, and it has sports-car aficionados salivating.

Haywood won his first 24 Hours of Daytona race in 1973, when he teamed with Brumos Porsche racing team founder Peter Gregg. “Peter Perfect,” Haywood recalls with a laugh. “He was a real detail-oriented person. Every single bit was planned and practiced. Nothing was left to chance. He was better prepared than everybody else . . . he set the standard.” Gregg purchased Brumos Motors in 1965 and built it into the top Porsche dealership in the nation. An eye injury later eroded his driving skills and he took his own life in 1980. Before Haywood, the legendary Gregg briefly teamed up with another co-driver, a Birmingham dairy and real estate tycoon named George Barber who is, by all accounts, as much a perfectionist as Peter Gregg was. Barber co-drove a Porsche 904 with Gregg at the 12 Hours of Sebring and 24 Hours of Daytona races in the late 1960s. The number 59 white Brumos Porsche is as familiar to road-racing fans as the late Dale Earnhardt’s black number 3 Chevrolet is to NASCAR devotees. Barber later met Haywood when he purchased a couple of motorcycles from the Le Mans racing legend. Barber is also the high-rolling businessman who shelled out $54 million to build the Barber Motorsports Park.

Chauffeuring a reporter around his new facility as the driving school’s silver Porsche 911 sports cars zip around the track, George Barber laughs at how he has been portrayed in the press. “For so long, I was a magnate, a mogul, a king, a baron . . . now I’m a magnate again.” Barber invited AMA Superbike champion Aaron Yates to test the track’s surface with his racing motorcycle. Yates told Barber that the track was better than 90 percent of the tracks he had driven on, and the racer pointed out a couple of minor flaws in the surface. Rather than repair the blemishes, Barber the perfectionist had the entire 2.3 miles repaved. After another test run, Yates pronounced it the best surface he had ever raced on.

In 1989, Barber began collecting and restoring classic sports cars. Motorcycles soon followed. “Cars are a beautiful paint job with hubcaps, but you can’t easily see the engine, the suspension,” he says, explaining his fascination with motorcycles. The Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum has the largest collection of motorcycles in the world, showcasing over 850 motorcycles and race cars. It first opened in 1995 near the Lakeview district in downtown Birmingham, drawing 10,000 visitors yearly (despite being open only two days a week). The new four-story, 141,000-square-foot facility includes a 72-seat theater, a machine shop, and a restoration shop with observation areas. Any motorcycle in the museum can be run on the track with a couple of hours preparation time, and a bike can almost be built from scratch at the shop. Barber was the largest contributor of motorcycles to the Art of the Motorcycle exhibit at the Guggenheim Museum in 1998. “The main purpose of the track is to feed the museum,” which Barber expects to draw 250,000 visitors annually.

The racetrack grounds reflect the reportedly $2 million spent on landscaping. Rhododendrons, azaleas, dogwoods, and magnolia trees share the grounds with giant spider and ant sculptures that are eerily reminiscent of creatures from a sci-fi film. One gargantuan insect clutches a mannequin in a racing uniform. Perhaps it’s Barber’s dig at environmentalists who protested runoff into Cahaba River tributaries during construction. Or maybe it’s just a little dark humor from a wealthy, idiosyncratic man who enthuses over his racetrack as if he was a kid with the world’s greatest slot car set. The natural amphitheater setting offers a Sunday afternoon picnic atmosphere for race patrons, who are encouraged to bring folding chairs and blankets. Barber frowns on notions of building a permanent grandstand. “I don’t want people confined to 18 inches of concrete.” The track layout was designed by preeminent racetrack designer Alan Wilson, who notes that the Barber facility has “a British garden party sort of atmosphere.”

But Porsche is the million-dollar name here (the Porsche Driving Experience school costs $1,600 per day). The German sports car has long been a badge of wealth and adventure for automobile enthusiasts. For example, one of Porsche’s latest models is a Carrera GT (Grand Touring) car that may be purchased off the showroom floor, ready-to-race, for $350,000—$400,000. According to Porsche officials, the sports car’s aim is to “bring the driver of the Carrera GT as close as possible to a full-blown racetrack experience on the road [zero-to-62 mph in 3.9 seconds, zero-to-124 mph in 9.9 seconds].” The Barber facility is where Porsche unveiled its Cayenne sport utility vehicle ($55,000 to $88,000, depending on whether one desires a turbo engine) and every Porsche dealer in the country has visited the park.

The Barber 250 race will be the feature event at the park the weekend of May 16 through 18. The Grand Am race includes the Daytona Prototype racers sharing the track with two classes of Grand Touring cars in the weekend’s feature event. The Prototypes are futuristic, closed-cockpit, tube-framed coupes that have engines built by Porsche, Ford, Toyota, and Chevrolet. The Grand Touring sports cars include BMWs, Ferraris, and Corvettes. The Barber Park Twin 250s in the Grand Am Cup series, featuring two Grand Sport and two Sport Touring classes, will also be staged. Other races in the weekend schedule include a FranAm event, a developmental league for drivers trying to make it to the Indy Racing League, and the CART champ car series. FranAm features Formula Renault open-wheel race cars that look similar to Indy cars.

The Saturday race feature at Barber will be of particular interest to NASCAR fans. It’s the Stock Car Championship Series (SCCS), a racing league “that combines the excitement of stock car racing with the driving challenge of world class road course venues,” according to SCCS officials. The goal is to bring new fans to road racing, and the SCCS has joined the Grand American circuit as a support race during the 2003 season in order to reach a larger audience. SCCS cars include the Chevrolet Monte Carlo, Pontiac Grand Prix, Ford Taurus, and the Dodge Intrepid, the same late model racers found on small speedways across the country on any Saturday night.

Hurley Haywood admits that the success of NASCAR is a template of sorts for making Grand Am racing more popular. “Everybody wants to duplicate what NASCAR is doing as far as making the cars very equal, and making the drivers of those cars into stars and household names . . . I think curiosity is gonna bring people out to a new facility. If you go back over the last 50 years, the core group in sports car racing has remained pretty much the same. It’s not the kind of sport that really is able to grow. There’s sort of a base group that follows sports car racing and that remains pretty much the same number from year to year. Where we’re having a problem right now is that there’s so much other stuff out there that the core group has got other things to do. So we’re trying, with the new Grand Am set of rules, to bring this group back to us with good kind of racing and interesting cars to watch. And drivers who people recognize. Unfortunately—or fortunately—I’m one of the few recognizable names in sports car racing that’s still racing. And that comes from the days when Camel cigarettes were supporting our sport and spending tons of money on the advertising side, and they really made me a star.”

Haywood predicts that despite slower speeds, the racing at Barber will be more exciting than at other road tracks. “The actual overall speed of the racetrack, what we do in a straight line, is a little slower than most tracks. Most tracks have longer straightaways. But this has basically four straightaways that you get up to a pretty good clip on, and I would imagine that the cars that we’re gonna be driving in May will go maybe 140 miles an hour tops . . . but that bunches the cars up [for close racing]. It’s an extremely busy racetrack. And I have not been on many racetracks that require the kind of absolute total concentration that this place does. If you have a little lapse of concentration, you’re off in the bushes. That’s how precise you have to be. With a lot of other tracks that have long straightaways, you get a little bit of time to rest and relax, but not so with Birmingham. You’re working your ass off every moment.” &

Several races are scheduled at the Barber Motorsports Park for the weekend of May 16 through 18. Call 967-4745 for details or visit www.barbermotorsports.com.

All Hail the Mighty Boll Weevil!

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All Hail the Mighty Boll Weevil!


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Not only does Enterprise, Alabama, boast the only monument in the world dedicated to an insect, the town may also have the most pilfered statue ever. From its perch in the town square, the huge black boll weevil that is hoisted in the air by a cement goddess in a flowing gown has been stolen four times in 83 years. The goddess was once stolen as well. Only in Alabama do you find a community worshipping an insect, but there’s some history behind this odd scenario.

The boll weevil (anthonomus grandis) burrowed its way into the hearts of Coffee County residents in 1915, devastating cotton fields as it migrated from Mexico through Mobile. Farmers were forced to diversify their crops, inadvertently revitalizing the Enterprise area and thus the boll weevil was subsequently revered as a savior of sorts .

Coincidentally, Dr. George Washington Carver arrived in Alabama to take over the agricultural department at Tuskegee University around the same time that the boll weevil invaded the state. Carver preached crop diversification to save Alabama’s soil, its nutrients having been depleted by the planting of cotton year after year. He stressed crop rotation, mainly sweet potatoes, pecans, and peanuts. (Cotton farming had left the dirt rich in phosphates, ideal for growing peanuts.)

The original bug shrine did not include an insect. The woman held only a fountain over her head until 1949, when a black metal boll weevil was added. Five years later the bug was stolen. Even the Saturday Evening Post covered the theft. Enterprise City Hall received a series of cryptic telephone messages that whispered, “You’ll find him in a cotton field!” but despite the tips, the boll weevil was never recovered. A larger bug replaced the original, but this time with the anatomically-correct six legs instead of four. In the early 1970s, the boll weevil and the woman holding it were stolen, only to be found two days later in a patch of weeds along a rural highway. The bug was again stolen in 1981 and 1998. The most recent theft left the goddess with shattered arms and a crack down her spine. Fortunately a mold had been cast several years earlier at the request of the Atlanta History Museum, and the replica of the original statue was unveiled during the 1998 Enterprise Christmas parade.

Enterprise hosts the Boll Weevil Festival every autumn, with arts and crafts, food, and live music on Main Street at the town square. This year’s event will be October 26, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is free. Call 334-347-0581 for details.

You Are Here

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You Are Here


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A 1657 map from the Rucker Agee Collection shows Floride Francois (Georgia and South Carolina), and Floride Espanole (the Southeast).

Defining one’s place in the historical world has always been a natural preoccupation of the curious, particularly cartographers and explorers. During November and December, the Rucker Agee Collection of the Birmingham Public Library will offer the public a glimpse at such perceptions of the South’s geographical location in history with “Maps-1540 to Today, From the Collection of Rucker Agee.” Comprised of 60 Eastern hemisphere maps dating back to the 1500s, the exhibit chronicles the development of Birmingham and the Southeastern region. Included in the exhibit are an original woodblock map from 1540 detailing the Spanish discovery of America, and a 16th-century Swiss map featuring renderings of Caribbean islands where seafaring trade ships docked.

The Rucker Agee Collection has been at the library since 1955, and an endowment keeps the collection of almost 4,000 maps updated with the most current charts available. “It’s fascinating to watch how various peoples used the land-the French, the Spanish. Everybody sticks to the coast and then they move in on the inland rivers,” says Marjorie White, director of the Birmingham Historical Society.

“Holster maps,” carried by British troops during the Revolutionary War, will be on display along with land surveys that included the east and west coasts of Florida, possibly used to identify landing sites for British vessels. An 1818 chart of Alabama is featured as the first map of the state. (Alabama officially achieved statehood in 1819.) Included are lands for sale by the state as well as territory inhabited by Indian tribes. There is also an 1849 geological map by Irish geologist Michael Tuomey that was used in the mining of Alabama’s mineral resources, especially coal and iron. Ages and types of strata are included with river systems and towns. The future location of Birmingham appears on a bed of limestone between two huge coal deposits.

The exhibit runs from November 1 to December 31. A reception will be held Sunday, November 3, from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. Call 226-3600 for details.

Johnny U

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Quarterback Johnny Unitas’ death on September 11 stirred childhood memories: Sunday afternoon pickup games played on empty church lots, NFL championships on television, or the solitary make-believe of an electric football game. Unitas was considered by most to be the greatest quarterback ever, and was credited by the late sportscaster Dick Schaap as the man primarily responsible for elevating football above baseball as the national pastime. There was nothing fancy about Unitas. A blue-collar quarterback with a crew cut and a simple, workmanlike effort, Unitas shredded the NFL’s staunchest defenses to ribbons each autumn Sunday afternoon. The image of Unitas on a black-and-white television set leading another come-from-behind victory was simply spellbinding. He could make the closing minutes of a football game seemingly go on forever. Expertly milking the clock for every precious second, Unitas invented the “two-minute” offense that eventually became an integral part of modern pro football.

 

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Johnny Unitas prepares to pass while Jim Marshall of the Minnesota Vikings gives chase during a 1967 NFL game.

Growing up Catholic in Pennsylvania, Unitas dreamed of playing college ball at Notre Dame but was rejected because he only weighed 138 pounds. Drafted by the Pittsburgh Steelers out of the University of Louisville, he was released at season’s end because the Steelers had too many quarterbacks. He took a construction job in the Pittsburgh area in 1956, playing semi-pro football for the Bloomtown Rams on dirt fields “for three dollars a game and the promise of a cold shower,” according to Unitas. Baltimore’s starting quarterback broke his leg against the Chicago Bears and the back-up had chosen law school over the NFL when Unitas was picked up by the Colts for $7,000 a season. He threw an interception that was returned for a touchdown the first time he passed, and lost a fumble in each of his next two possessions. But the next year he led the Colts to their first winning season, and in 1958 he guided Baltimore to the first of back-to-back world championships over the New York Giants. Packer coaching legend Vince Lombardi said he was the greatest player to ever play the game.

For all his passing skills, Unitas considered his devotion to mental discipline his most vital asset as a quarterback. A master at finding vulnerabilities in opposing defenses, he astounded coaches with his ability to call the perfect plays in unpredictable situations. He was fabled for his toughness (quarterbacks were not protected back then as they are by today’s rules), which earned respect from teammates. Former Colts lineman Bubba Smith remembered the afternoon an opposing defensive lineman shoved Unitas’ head into the ground after a tackle. “He called the same play, let the same guy come through, and broke his nose with the football. I said, ‘That’s my hero.’” Former Colt tight end John Mackey said that playing with Unitas was like “being in a huddle with God.”

Comparing Johnny Unitas to the Almighty was not lost on my Sunday School pals. Conversation at church usually centered more on football than the Lord. We couldn’t wait to get home to watch Unitas rally the Baltimore Colts one more time. With his head tilted downward as if gazing at the ground, his black high-top shoes shuffling rapidly back into the pocket, his style of dropping back to pass was like that of no other quarterback. He appeared invincible in that white helmet with the big blue horseshoe on the side. For years I didn’t realize the logo was a horseshoe. To me it had always represented a big blue “U” for Unitas.

George Jones

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George Jones


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Having relinquished his reputation for being too drunk to appear on stage, George Jones had gotten as predictable as April rain over the past 20 years. However, Jones’ performance at Oak Mountain May 25 was anything but predictable. Though still relegating his best hits to medley-status, the 70-year-old singer abandoned his uptight sing-and-get-the-hell-off-the-stage philosophy for a more relaxed approach, as though he were entertaining at a backyard barbecue. Stylishly attired in white boots and a western-stitched powder blue suit, Jones bears a striking resemblance to the late Charlie Rich. His silver hair remains considerably long, meticulously brushed into place, as if manicured rather than sprayed.

In the past, Jones’ voice has been as precise as Pavarotti’s. The classic nasal whine and resonating bottom tones are strong as ever, but on this night, Jones struggled with high notes, often singing flat through entire phrases. Instead of detracting, the loss of vocal control added an intriguing accessible element that complemented the singer’s admittedly simple approach to performing: “We don’t need anybody flyin’ around on a rope. We’re just a plain, ol’ country music show.”

A plain, ol’ country music show, indeed. Before Jones came on stage, a video screen behind the band’s instruments hawked a recent George Jones recording, urging fans to simply raise their hands and the latest CD would be delivered to their seats for 10 bucks. During the show Jones bantered with the crowd, bemoaning the current state of country music, “Ya’ll notice that they don’t write songs about drinkin’ and cheatin’ any more?” he asked at one point. The crowd vocally shared his dismay. Moments later, a young, obviously intoxicated fan leaped onto the stage to hug Jones and tell the singer how much he loved him. Jones replied, “Well. I love you, too, son.” As security personnel dragged the besotted fellow from the stage, Jones asked them to take it easy on the kid. “He’s a good boy. I remember those days,” he laughed.

Proudly admitting that he was drinking “spring water, though I don’t know how much spring it has in it,” Jones acknowledged several birthdays in the audience. With surreal abandon, he sang “Happy Birthday” to a couple of people instead of squeezing all the names into one version. An American flag was brought out toward the show’s conclusion, as Jones introduced a husband and wife duo that had opened the concert. “They’re gonna sing ‘God Bless the USA’ by Lee Greenwood or Ray Stevens or whatever his name is,” Jones said flippantly. “I get ‘em mixed up. All I know is, one’s funny and the other one isn’t.”

Gone in Sixty Seconds

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Gone in Sixty Seconds


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Who else but racing legend Mario Andretti could balance an IMAX camera on an Indy car traveling at 230 miles-per-hour? It’s all part of the filming involved in the new IMAX film, Super Speedway, at the McWane Center.

Speed demon Mario Andretti is the epitome of the handsome, charming race car driver. The most versatile champion in racing history, Andretti has won in Indy cars, stock cars, high-tech Formula I racers, sprint cars, and 24-hour endurance racing. Adding a Hollywood flourish, the Italian racer with the Tony Bennett-good looks drove for a team owned by actor and fellow driver Paul Newman.

Now, highly-acclaimed IMAX director Stephen Low gives audiences the rare opportunity to experience Andretti’s 230-mile-per-hour perspective. For Southerners open-minded enough to check out racing other than the NASCAR sort, the McWane Center’s IMAX Theatre will feature the documentary Super Speedway for a five-month run beginning Saturday, March 23. Indy cars are faster and quicker than stock cars, and their wheel-to-wheel, tension-fueled battles are breathtaking. The half-million dollar automobiles pull four G’s in the turns, and create enough suction to jerk manhole covers from streets on road course surfaces (covers are welded to the street for road races).

Andretti was lured out of semi-retirement to pilot an Indy race car fitted with an IMAX camera whose aerodynamically intrusive bulk raised concerns that the car would fail to reach top speeds. Refusing to participate unless filming was done under true racing conditions, the veteran driver put those doubts to rest when he hit 240 miles per hour. “You never really know what’s going to happen until you dive into a corner at over 200 miles per hour, because otherwise these cars don’t react,” says Andretti, describing the aerodynamic forces that drivers challenge in order to find the perfect balance between risk and opportunity. Testing a new car is a daring, unpredictable venture. “You don’t have the sense of what this animal is going to do,” Andretti comments. “These things can bite.” Initially, the camera would shut off when speeds hit 210 miles per hour because of “harmonic vibrations killing the electronics in the camera,” according to Andretti. Filming took place during practice sessions prior to each of four different races during the 1996 season, documenting Mario’s son Michael Andretti’s quest for the CART (Championship Auto Racing Teams) championship. Mario Andretti was in control of switching the camera on and off, and it was up to him to find the best shots.

A second story line develops when an automobile restorer finds a 1964 Dean Van Line Special Roadster in an abandoned chicken coop in Indiana. It’s the same car that Mario Andretti drove at the 1964 Indianapolis 500. Restoration continues throughout the movie until Andretti is reunited with the reconditioned sparkling white and chrome Roadster at the film’s end. Vintage footage depicts races from earlier days, including an ample number of dramatic crashes to emphasize the risks drivers take.

The film transcends the titillating boundaries of in-car race cameras that project drivers’ perspectives during Sunday afternoon telecasts. Both Mario and Michael Andretti were amazed at the realism of IMAX racing. “With an on-board video camera, you don’t really get a true picture of what’s going on,” explains Mario. “This IMAX stuff will keep you on the edge of your seat because everything is happening the way the drivers see it.”

Super Speedway will be shown at the McWane Center March 23 through August 30. For more information, call 714-8300.

A Pack of Lies

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A Pack of Lies


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Malignant tumors are no laughing matter, but the gallows humor of the exhibit When ‘More Doctors Smoke Camels’ . . . A Century of Health Claims in Cigarettes prompts more than a few paradoxical giggles. Featured in the display on the third floor of the Lister Hill Library for the Health Sciences at UAB are 25 print advertisements, all shameless tobacco promotions, which make the diabolical claim that good health and the pleasures of smoking are intertwined. And who more reliable to reassure generations of smokers of the vitality of cigarettes than the family physician?

The tobacco industry’s brilliant 20th-century marketing ploys are the essence of the exhibition. In the 1930s, cigarettes were touted for being “less irritating” to the throat due to having been “toasted.” Post-World War II Camel ads acknowledged the benefit of war-time cigarette shortages that forced smokers to light up what they normally might not, implying that coerced smoking of other brands made smokers realize how good Camels really were. By the 1950s, filter tips were invented as a “safer” method of smoking, although at one time asbestos was used in the filters. Low tar cigarettes were the rage in the ’60s and ’70s, but a 2001 ad heralds the latest creation of the tobacco industry, Omni cigarettes, which boast the world’s “first reduced carcinogen cigarette.” In a letter of endorsement from the producers of Omni, the CEO of Vendor Tobacco admits that there are no safe cigarettes, but claims that Omni is “destined to change the future of cigarettes” as the “best alternative.”

Dr. Alan Blum, professor of family medicine and director of the Center for the Study of Tobacco and Society at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, home of the tobacco ad collection, labels reduced carcinogen cigarettes as the “latest fraudulent gimmick.” Dr. Blum founded the National Tobacco Archive at the center in 1977. The ad exhibit is presently on a tour of medical and public health schools across the nation.

A 1942 Philip Morris ad in Good Housekeeping takes aim at the

sensitivity of the “feminine throat.” Women were often depicted with children in cigarette ads, as in a 1946 advertisement for Camels touting increased life expectancy. A young child tells her pediatrician, “I’m going to grow a hundred years old” as her mom looks on proudly. Another features a mother cradling a newborn, promoting a new cigarette that is “born gentle, then refined to special gentleness in the making.”

Ads for Old Gold cigarettes show an American Indian proclaiming, “No heap big medicine talk. Old Gold cures one thing: the world’s best tobacco.” A Chesterfield ad declares, “Science discovered it, you can prove it” as a scientist peers into a microscope, a burning cigarette propped between two fingers. Actor Robert Young is portrayed during his “Father Knows Best” days, asserting that his “voice and throat were important factors” in his decision to switch to Camels. And a seductive nurse puffs the same brand, purring, “You like them fresh? So do I!”

Finally, a penguin dressed as a doctor talking on the telephone offers advice to a patient, a stethoscope around his neck as he smokes a cigarette: “Tell him to switch to Kools and he’ll be all right!”

Alabama Getaway

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Alabama Getaway


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The Alabama 500 will be raced at Talladega Superspeedway on Sunday, October 21.

A blur of colors roars past at 200 mph with the deafening noise from 43 dueling race cars that are separated by mere inches. Suddenly, two of the cars touch, and spectators leap from their seats more in fear of flying debris than for a better vantage point. The squeal of skidding tires and odor of burnt rubber accompany an abrupt crash that leaves wreckage scattered across the asphalt.

No sport is more breathtaking than automobile racing, and with 2.6 miles of raceway action and steep 33-degree banked turn, no track is faster than the Talladega Superspeedway. The Alabama 500, held each October in Talladega is one of NASCAR’s premier events.

It’s been a sad, though no less exciting, year for Winston Cup stock car racing. The sport’s most colorful champion, Dale Earnhardt, was killed on the final lap of the Daytona 500, the first race of the year. In search of victory at any cost, Earnhardt became legendary for his controversial driving maneuvers.

In recent weeks, renegade driving tactics have ignited a weekly feud between veterans Ricky Rudd (who drives the late Davey Allison’s black and orange Number 28 Texaco Ford) and Rusty Wallace. Each weekend, one driver pays the other back for destruction inflicted the week before. The conflict escalated two weeks ago in Dover, Delaware, at the track known as the Monster Mile. Rudd clipped Wallace while putting him a lap down. Several laps later, Wallace blatantly smashed the rear of Rudd’s car, spinning Rudd out and costing him the race. After the race, Rudd confronted Wallace, grabbing him by the collar as the two exchanged threats in the garage. All eyes will be on the quarreling pair when the green flag drops at Talladega on Sunday, October 21.

Alabama 500 racing action begins Thursday, October 18, and Friday, October 19, with qualifying for the weekend’s races. Saturday will feature the ARCA Food World 300, and Sunday, October 21, features the big one, the Alabama 500. Call 256-362-RACE for details.