My Hometown

While brows­ing the AJC this after­noon, I was sur­prised to find Gads­den, Alaba­ma fea­tured as a “one tank trip” des­ti­na­tion. I lived there for 7–8 years as a child and spent sev­er­al sum­mers there in my teens, and had­n’t ever heard of any of the men­tioned attrac­tions oth­er than Noc­calu­la Falls. I was even more sur­prised to read that Gads­den was sup­pos­ed­ly vot­ed “Amer­i­ca’s Most Liv­able City” by some­body back in 2000. I have to won­der if any of the vot­ers actu­al­ly lived there for any length of time, as I large­ly remem­ber hor­ri­ble schools (no libraries, even), staunch racism, and gen­er­al intol­er­ance. I do have some good mem­o­ries, of course, but they’re of peo­ple more than places, so tourists would­n’t have access to them.