Gary Lloyd's Blog, page 2

Old and new converge in Gatlinburg

By Gary Lloyd

This column is a sequel.

A year and a half ago, I nostalgically wrote about Gatlinburg, Tennessee, the most popular tourist destination within five hours north of here.

I wrote about the T-shirt shops that dominate the Parkway, the Food City that you must push a shopping cart through if you want your cabin fridge stocked for the week, the need for cash in your wallet if you plan on eating at Pancake Pantry.

I finished out that column by detailing how my wife and I spent our honeymoon there in 2013 and babymoon in 2019, and several times in between. We had not been back since 2019, nor on any other vacation, for that matter. We vowed to take our toddler son there for his first trip. We had shown him Facebook albums full of photos from the Parkway, inside the Ripley’s Aquarium of the Smokies, along the winding roads of Cades Cove.

Well, just before Christmas, we took him. We went to all the usual places, ate all the usual meals. We spent the first full day at Pancake Pantry for breakfast, Ripley’s Aquarium, Fannie Farkle’s, No Way Jose’s for lunch, Kilwin’s for afternoon ice cream, and more along the Parkway. Our second day was spent pinballing around Pigeon Forge, to general stores and Christmas villages to Jurassic Park jungle boat rides and WonderWorks.

Day three was mostly spent at Cades Cove taking in the scenery and wildlife. I brought my camera, of course, and my son brought the one he got for Christmas. That made me happy. The early evening we spent making s’mores in the backyard of our rental home. Our final full day was dubbed “Random Day,” during which we ate at Crockett’s Breakfast Camp, gawked at a black bear on the Roaring Fork Motor Trail, cruised down slides at Mynatt Park, and fed everything from rabbits to elk to zebras at the Smoky Mountain Deer Farm & Exotic Petting Zoo.

There was, of course, a lot more. A lot of Christmas lights in Sevierville, a lot of credit card swipes in random arcades, a lot of it’s-December-so-they-don’t-count calories, a lot of toddler feelings bigger than those Great Smoky Mountains.

The trip had its stresses, no doubt, and I suppose a first vacation with your child – and a dog who will steal graham crackers from around the fire pit – is a parental rite of passage of sorts. But the trip also had incredible highs, moments which, despite having an excitable toddler in tow, somehow slowed me down. Our son gazing around Pancake Pantry slowed me down. The fact that you can pay there now with a credit card and the vintage cash register has disappeared straight-up shocked me. The calories definitely slowed me down. Seeing the Christmas lights twinkle in my son’s wide-open eyes slowed me down. Taking photos of him all over Cades Cove certainly slowed me down.

The trip, as everyone says, went by too fast. But it had slow moments. I hope, for at least the next 15 years, the slow moments pile as high as the Great Smoky Mountains.

Gary Lloyd is the author of six books and a contributing writer to the Cahaba Sun.

‘Cause it’s a short piece of time

By Gary Lloyd

I’ve had a particular book idea saved since May 2019, one that I’ll jokingly hint at as this column concludes.

But for everything in between, here goes. I cover high school football and have for something like 16 years now. My coverage is as old as some sophomore wide receivers. I guess it’s finally all right that they call me “sir” in postgame interviews.

I’ve been all over the state, but often in a destination-focused manner. Heading north to Milton Frank Stadium in Huntsville? Drive straight there. A regular season game at Hartselle? Interstate 59 for 19 miles and Interstate 65 for 67 creeping miles.

But last season, I made two playoff trips that changed the way I approach high school football coverage. I had been building toward it for a while, but it finally made sense to leave early enough to try. I wanted to mix football with local culture, to produce content – stories and columns, social media posts, photos, videos – that shed light on different people and places in this state.

It started with John Carroll Catholic traveling to Fairview in Cullman. I stopped at a Mexican restaurant in Cleveland for a 3:30 p.m. dinner. I had to have time to see more. I drove two-tenths of a mile to Hazelrig’s Orchards, where I perused apples, peaches, jams, cookbooks, and left with a bag of chocolate-covered pecans and a smile on my face after a 45-minute conversation with the co-owner. I took photos of the Locust Fork River at dusk from the King’s Bend Overlook before making my way to Fairview High School, which looks suspiciously like a larger version of Cahaba Elementary School.

Hazelrig’s Orchard in Cleveland, Alabama

A couple weeks later, I trekked two hours and 15 minutes northwest to Muscle Shoals to see the Trojans take on Clay-Chalkville. I drove straight to the Shoals, but this time I traveled mostly rural highways. I saw a million cows and dozens of barns. I spent a short time on Interstate 65, and I never had to ride the brake. When I arrived in the city limits, I did the first thing any tourist should: I found Champy’s World Famous Fried Chicken. OK, maybe that’s the second or third thing tourists do in Muscle Shoals. I could have pulled up the National Federation of State High School Associations game feed and covered the game with hours of that chicken. Coaches are now asking me on the sidelines where I ate before the game. I guess this is now my duty, and I accept it.

The games are great, of course. I love covering this sport. I always have and probably always will, even if someday my old age imprisons me to the cold bleachers instead of the hustle of the sidelines. But now I’m seeking out local restaurants, interesting cultures, and beautiful views so that I can plan fun day trips with my wife and son. Why Google every destination when you can just stumble upon new places like they did in the olden days? You know, like, the 1990s.

Trips across Alabama to write about culture and high school football? Excellent. Trips across Alabama with my family to make lasting memories? Excellent.

That’s a dual threat.

Gary Lloyd is the author of six books and a contributing writer to the Cahaba Sun.

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A shack of railroad ties, but much more

By Gary Lloyd

We weren’t even supposed to go that far down Stemley Bridge Road in the Pell City area.

We had planned to eat at this river-view restaurant, on a back porch where the wind tries to sweep your napkin into the Coosa. Inexplicably, the restaurant was closed.

We weren’t near much else, and a Google Maps search showed the closest place for food was called, simply, The Shack, and was a mere one-third of a mile up the road. When you have a three-year-old in the car, and it’s time to eat, you make quick decisions. The Shack, it was.

The Shack’s menu

We pulled into a gravel lot that led to a low-lying, red-roof building with what appeared to be a red train car beside it. “Welcome” was painted in white above the entry door, and the “N” in the neon “OPEN” sign was no longer receiving electricity. I was skeptical yet curious.

When we got to our back-corner booth, my skepticism vanished without ever having to taste the food. Autographed photos and memorabilia hung from the walls. Dale Earnhardt. Jeff Gordon. Billy Ray Cyrus. A poster from Jan. 1, 1953, that showed a two-dollar entry fee at the Grand Ole Opry to see Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Johnny Horton, Marty Robbins, and Hank Thompson play their music. The tablecloths were checkered in red and white.

The food was great, of course, and this column wasn’t written to focus on it. But I will say one thing: While every other dining establishment is providing match box-sized packets of ranch sauce, The Shack brings to your table a twenty-ounce squeeze bottle full of it.

Anyway, I’m a “story guy,” as you may have guessed. You can get away with bland baked beans if your establishment tugs at heartstrings. The Shack’s does. It’s printed on the menu like some book back-cover blurb, and maybe it should be.

The story of The Shack, and its “folks,” are printed over the course of a few paragraphs. A photo of Dot Hann, one of the original owners, adjoins it. The Shack opened July 1, 1983, and it’s been sitting on that gravel since. Haskell Hann, Dot’s husband, built it, and their home behind it, with railroad crossties. Imagine the best house you’ve made from Lincoln Logs as a kid, but inside there’s a plate of ribs and banana pudding. That’s The Shack.

The back cover of the menu describes how the red train caboose was added later as a storage building, how one of the Hanns’ children, Wayne, married Montez, who brought in a homemade dressing recipe. Another of their children, Sharon, along with her husband, Ricky, bought the restaurant when Haskell died two years after it opened. A son, Jeff, followed in his father’s footsteps and cooked the meat on the smokers out back. Shane, another son, is mentioned along with his wife and children.

What restaurant’s menu can give you a rib plate and a family history?

The back cover of the menuThe scene from our boothThe greatest photo to ever exist of Dale Earnhardt NASCAR legend Jeff Gordon and a whole lot of Pepsi advertisingA Grand Ole Opry poster from 1953Billy Ray Cyrus with a joke that indeed made me feel achyThe infamous bottle of ranch sauce Memory booksMemory booksMemory booksThe Shack

After we ate, and I took enough iPhone photos to satisfy my need to describe the place, I encountered a round table near the front door. There were a couple memory books. I signed and flipped through several past pages. I know they keep these memory books at Gatlinburg cabins and beach resorts, but finding one inside a forty-year-old barbecue joint was different in such a good way. I felt connected to a place I didn’t intend to visit.

Above the table was a framed column written in 1994 by then-Senior Editor George Smith from The Anniston Star, about visiting this restaurant for the first time. The column is cut from the newspaper and pressed to a square of pink-and-green floral wallpaper that is an undeniable ‘90s pattern.

“Home is a bunch of railroad ties,” he titled it.

Home. It sure felt like it.

Gary Lloyd is the author of six books and a contributing writer to the Cahaba Sun.

My mind travels a path to Massachusetts

By Gary Lloyd

On a Saturday in May, my iPhone buzzed with a text message from a former teacher.

“Will you be in church tomorrow 9:30 – 10:00ish?” it read. I said yes, wondering if this former teacher wanted to tag along to the morning service, had an idea for a story to cover during that time, or something else.

“I was going to FaceTime you from Walden Pond,” was what he sent back to me.

Wait. What? Walden Pond in Massachusetts has long been a bucket-list destination for me, the place where Henry David Thoreau spent two years, two months and two days, and the digital postcard that is FaceTime would have been the next-best option until I can fly north someday.

I joked that this teacher should spend part of his vacation sending me photos and videos. I even sent that laughing emoji. But the next day at 4 p.m., my iPhone again vibrated. It was a video from the teacher, 30 seconds of showing me inside the replica of Thoreau’s cabin. Next came a hilarious 34-second video from Walden Pond, narrated by the teacher who, in part, quipped, “It’s very crowded today. This is like day-use beach. I’m not sure what Thoreau would think, but I do not think that he would say these people are living deliberately. Wish you were here. Come at a different time other than Memorial Day weekend.”

Eight photos followed, and several more from his wife, of Thoreau’s home site and inside the nearby museum.

Imagine, traversing the country bound for Canada, and ensuring that a former student sees as much as he can of a place that has long inspired him. What a teacher. What a friend. What a selling point to make that trip myself.

A month later, literally to the day, another text message came through. “Are you around this morning? We come bearing gifts.”

The teacher and his wife showed up to my front porch with a T-shirt from Walden Pond, a guidebook, and more booklets all about this historic place. We stood there for an hour, talking about their trip to Walden Pond and Canada. Their storytelling made me feel as if I was there with them, despite standing on a Trussville porch in June. But I will travel there one day, no doubt. Their stories only intensified that desire.

I was scrolling through the photos the teacher sent to me for this column, and one from inside the library or museum on-site caught my eye. One of Thoreau’s passages from Walden caught my eye.

“I had not lived there a week before my feet wore a path from my door to the pond-side…and so with the paths which the mind travels. How worn and dusty, then, must be the highways of the world, how deep the ruts of tradition and conformity!”

That’s a shortened version of a long conclusion to Walden, so I read the conclusion again. Two sentences after this passage came this: “I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.”

Words first published about a place in 1854, still inspiring and leading today. I can’t wait to see it myself.

Gary Lloyd is the author of six books and a contributing writer to the Cahaba Sun.

Column: Open season for high school sports

By Gary Lloyd

What are we even doing here?

Typically, my column ledes are painstakingly developed over dozens of minutes and thought. Sometimes hours. This one was easy.

What are we even doing here?

Those are the only words necessary for the week that it’s been in Alabama, specifically relating to Alabama High School Athletic Association sports. I’m writing this only six days since the 50-29 Spain Park win over No. 5 Hewitt-Trussville, but it somehow feels like a month ago. Why is that?

Well, a star defensive end who played in that game for Spain Park is now bound for Thompson, less than a week later. I covered the game Friday, heard rumblings about a potential transfer Sunday, and Monday was discussing when Jared Smith, a four-star defensive end, might play for Thompson. Wild, how fast something like this can happen.

And here’s why. According to the AHSAA Handbook, a student-athlete is eligible at a different school two days after making a compliant, bona fide move, so long as other eligibility requirements are met. On Page 35 of the Handbook, under “Determining a Bona Fide Move,” the first sentence reads, “Sometimes it is very difficult to determine what constitutes a bona fide move.”

“Sometimes”? “Very difficult”? How ambiguous, how open to interpretation. To be fair, the Handbook goes on to provide several guidelines for determining a bona fide move, but why the ambiguity? I’m no lawyer, though I do religiously watch episodes of Suits on Netflix, but what a weirdly written rule. Very weird, you might say. Take a stance. Make an actual rule that prevents playing for two schools potentially a week apart.  

I have no issue with Smith and his family leaving for another city or home, or any student-athlete from any sport doing so. People move all the time. Alabaster has become a popular destination, no doubt. So have other cities across this state, and you all know which ones they are. In many cases, look at the parallel between an increasing population and gridiron success. It’s happening, and while “More people mean more depth on the football team” is certainly true, get real. You know why it is.

But the issue is the rule, and I suppose my reason will be just as ambiguous as the rule. It’s just … icky. I suppose a vague rule means vague reasoning.

Kidding aside, if Smith plays this Friday for Thompson, he will have played against Hoover twice in one regular season for two different schools in Class 7A, Region 3. That just can’t happen. That’s the reason to look at this rule. How is this possible? I squarely believe you shouldn’t be permitted to play for two schools in one calendar year. It’s wild that it’s not already the case.

And if it doesn’t become the case soon, here’s my fear: It’ll be open season for high school football in Alabama, and all other sports. Stick with me here. Sure, the rule has been in effect for a while, and this has happened before Smith’s move to Alabaster. But it’s never been quite this public, or quick. Some will say, “You’re just talking about it because it’s a big-time recruit!”

Well, yeah. Almost any drama in sports or art or anything else takes a big-time player or big-time program being involved to move the needle. Think the Texas Rangers vs. Arizona Diamondbacks in the World Series is going to get as much attention as a Los Angeles Dodgers vs. New York Yankees series would? Of course not.

Starnes Media Sports Editor Kyle Parmley and I discussed this topic on this week’s episode of the Under the Lights podcast.

Smith is a part of this story because he’s the big-time recruit. Thompson is a part of this story because it’s the big-time program that consistently wins – and consistently has new folks move to town. But the story, at least to me, is what this weeklong public discussion means for the future.

I know coaches who are dumbfounded by this story. And why shouldn’t they be? Imagine facing a defensive player one week who sacks your quarterback three times, or a running back who rushes for 200 yards against you, and the next week that player can suit up in your colors. That’s wild. Coaches have known about student-athletes moving from one school to another for years. That’s nothing new. The immediacy of eligibility in this case is what’s been eye-opening for coaches this week.

It potentially paves the way for open season in high school football. Call it free agency. Call it a trade deadline. I’ll keep calling it icky and the continued professionalization of high school sports. Let me be hypothetical. By this rule, a quarterback could hypothetically move from School A in the Birmingham area to School B in the Birmingham area in Week 3 of the season. A wide receiver from School C in the Birmingham area is a fellow recruit who loves this quarterback’s highlights posted on social media, and his family hypothetically makes the move to an apartment in the city of School B in Week 5. Boom, a super tandem is formed.

You can say it’s a stretch, but it’s not. The last week has proven it could happen. And that’s a scary precedent.

Maybe this public discussion in the Birmingham area will help. Maybe Simone Eli’s WKRG report about the Gulf Shores football program will help. Nothing will help, though, until all this discussion is had at the largest city between the two – Montgomery.

Gary Lloyd is the author of six books and a contributing writer to the Cahaba Sun.

No app? I’ve got news for you

By Gary Lloyd

I have added 56 apps to my iPhone – yes, I counted – but these days I find myself scrolling Facebook news feeds less before bed, drafting fantasy football teams infrequently, and daydreaming through fewer Montana acreages on the Realtor.com app.

The reason couldn’t be as confusing in 2023. That reason?

Newspapers. No, really.

In February, I purchased a Newspapers.com subscription to research old articles for a book I’m working on. I planned on downloading as many applicable PDFs of 1938 stories as possible within my six-month subscription timeframe and not renew it in August. Instead, I’ve let it renew and found myself falling into a daily black hole of black ink.

Why? Because I’ve learned so darn much. I believe it’s made history and local news “cool” for those who follow me on social media. Here are some highlights.

I’ve learned that Queenstown Lake in Trussville was, a hundred years ago, a weekend getaway destination for Birmingham folks, a place where the biggest fish in the county were caught using live minnows. I’ve learned that, on the other end of Trussville, there was once a plan to call 4,000 acres of land Mason-Dixon City, 300 of those acres sold to Motion Pictures Interests to house studios and shoot films. Those grandiose plans were featured in full-page newspaper advertisements, but it was 1928, and the impending Great Depression devastated Mason-Dixon City before it really got started. The land office was the only building constructed, and it later became a tavern.

I’ve learned that in 1935 a state representative from Trussville introduced a bill in the Alabama Legislature to prevent what he called “nudist camps.” The legislator called himself “old-fashioned” and said, “I don’t like these bathing suits that cut the corners.”

I’ve learned that the city of Remlap got its name in the pettiest way. Two brothers, whose family owned a garage and general store in the 1930s, feuded over the naming of a town that one of the brothers moved to. Since Palmer – now Palmerdale – had already been chosen as the name of the family’s town, the brother who settled six miles from there simply spelled the family name backward. Remlap was born.

I’ve learned that in response to the fire that engulfed the former elementary school in Trussville in May 1973, one idea to raise funds to rebuild the school was to have students write letters to celebrities and request a gift to be auctioned off. Letters were written to Carol Burnett, John Wayne, Johnny Cash, Bear Bryant, and Bob Hope, among others.

I’ve learned more than I ever thought I could about the history of Rickwood Field in Birmingham, most recently that the late Jimmy Buffett flew here in the early 1990s for a role in the movie “Cobb,” in which he played a pesky fan that Ty Cobb punches in the face.

Research of Buffett felt timely and apropos, specifically the song “Son of a Son of a Sailor,” one of my favorites. There is a thirst for adventure in the lyrics. There is an obvious pride in legacy and inspiration from heritage.

I suppose that’s what the Newspapers.com subscription has been for me. It’s not a boat that sails far into the blue, and it certainly isn’t an adult beverage on the rocks from Margaritaville, but it is a deep dive into a heritage that feels important.

Gary Lloyd is the author of six books and a contributing writer to the Cahaba Sun.

Learning to treasure the moments

By Gary Lloyd

Most folks today rarely, if ever, look around.

Do I want someone staring down at me from one of those elevated booths as I slather fried chicken in ranch sauce at Jim ‘N Nick’s? Of course not. But I’d take that every time over a dining room full of zombielike humans, mere feet from each other, faces buried in a glow of 15-second videos, swiping from one to the next with greasy fingers.

Sadly, that mindless scrolling is most of what we see these days, and not just over plates of chicken tenders. We see it in the chill of the frozen food section, in the heat of a Gulf Shores beach chair, in the dark of movie theaters, in the left lane of Interstate 459 at a smooth 87 mph. It hurts me each time I see it, more so because I know, at times, I’m also guilty.

But occasionally, in a world that needs an intervention due to technological overdose, there’s an old man who restores my faith. He’s never the same man by name, but always the same man by outlook, by character. His collared shirt is always tucked into pressed khaki pants, and he’s never one to shy away from conversation with a stranger. One night in August, that old man was perched in one of those elevated booths with his wife, under a flat-screen television tuned to ESPN.

We were at Jim ‘N Nick’s for dinner after our son’s fifth day of 3K, an interesting time for us all. A quiet house. Trusting others with our son. Our son was devouring honey-butter-covered cheese biscuits while we preached to use his “inside voice.” It’s been nice having a daily routine, a normal work schedule. But I also feel guilty for that feeling, for feeling as if life is somehow easier at times with our son at school. I suppose it’s why parents try their absolute best to fill the remaining time with trips and experiences.

As we played I-Spy – our son seems to only want to play this game at Jim ‘N Nick’s – the old man and his wife prepared to leave. The old man stopped at our table and told us how precious our son was, how time slipped by so fast as his own son graduated high school and then college and was now a college professor.

“Treasure these moments,” he told us.

Then, he was gone, off to the closest handicap space in the parking lot, settling himself into the passenger seat wrapped in an Auburn University cover. I suppose I can forgive him for that. Maybe.

As we drove north on Highway 11 back home, country music shuffled on my Apple CarPlay. I always shuffle my 400-plus songs and hope for something I haven’t heard in a while. Of all the songs to play at the time, still thinking of the old man with the three simple yet powerful words of advice, “Three-Year-Old” by Eric Church played. It’s impossible to pick the best lyrics, but here are my favorites:

Sometimes, all you need is a hand to hold

Couple arms to kill the cold

And when you’re wrong, you should just say so

I learned that from a three-year-old

Gary Lloyd is the author of six books and a contributing writer to the Cahaba Sun.

The tidal wave of enthusiasm and pride

By Gary Lloyd

I was idling in my truck beside Block 4 at historic Oak Hill Cemetery, starting at downtown Birmingham.

I had finished some Trussville-related historical research early and was thinking of where to go next. Just one nearby place came to mind.

Rickwood Field.

I drove nine minutes and arrived at a mostly empty baseball stadium, the oldest ballpark in America, and planned to take some photos of the forest-green exterior, the ticket windows, and whatever else I could see from the intersection of Second Avenue West and Twelfth Street West. Instead, I found an open gate and cars parked behind the right-field bleachers. So, naturally, I drove in. I walked inside to find numerous Friends of Rickwood Field members and officials ready to work with rakes and pressure washer wands. I had a digital camera and tripod. Oops.

I thought I was going to be escorted out, an innocent trespasser begging for forgiveness when he had not asked permission. Instead, I was given a personal tour, through the press box and atop the roof, on the field and in the gift shop. I was given pointers on where to explore – beyond the current outfield wall to see the original concrete outfield wall, for example – and given free reign to wander every foot of the most historical diamond in America, which saw its first pitch Aug. 18, 1910. I lapped the stadium twice – once on the field, once through the bleachers – sat in the dugouts, FaceTimed my dad from the outfield, read a newspaper in the visitors’ locker room, and filled my camera with a hundred photos.  

It was June 17. On June 20, Major League Baseball announced that a regular season game between the San Francisco Giants and St. Louis Cardinals will be played June 20, 2024, at Rickwood Field, a likely tribute to the Birmingham Black Barons and Negro Leagues.

Baseball plus history? If you know me, you know I was hooked. I posted about it that night on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. Anything to promote local history. The folks I met that day I’ve stayed in touch with, and some that I’ve connected with that I didn’t meet that day I plan to meet soon. One of the latter even tags me in his Facebook posts from Rickwood Field so that I don’t miss out. What a community.

Since my June visit, I have used my Newspapers.com account to dig into the stadium’s history, and I’m still more hooked than I thought I ever would be. I mean, if you search “Rickwood Field” in Alabama newspapers since 1910, you get 13,088 results. That’s an average of 116 newspaper mentions per year for 113 years. The content-producing portion of my brain was working overtime. I had grandiose ideas of content I could produce – histories, features, even a book – from this one stadium. I suppose I still have those ideas.

But I’ll leave you with one passage. The Aug. 18, 1910, issue of The Birmingham News printed a page dedicated to the grand opening of the stadium, and under the headline “Rickwood Opens Today,” the second sentence read, “Lovers of the national sport in the city are celebrating the event in great style, and others, whether willing or not, are being drawn along with the tidal wave of enthusiasm and pride.”

It’s 2023, and that enthusiasm and pride are still drawing us along.

Gary Lloyd is the author of six books and a contributing writer to the Cahaba Sun.

One man’s trash is a toddler’s treasure

By Gary Lloyd

This time last year, I stumbled upon a YouTube video compilation of garbage trucks driving from home to home, snatching up cans and dumping garbage.

I was surprised that the video was nearly two hours long. I was stunned that it had been viewed more than four million times.

I quickly found out why. Toddlers love them.

I expected our son to go through a phase of loving dump trucks, excavators, and monster trucks. All boys do. But a 10-wheel truck full of forgotten lettuce, dozens of Chick-fil-A bags and thousands of flattened Amazon boxes is apparently mesmerizing.

Our 3-year-old’s love for garbage trucks – regular garbage and recycling – hasn’t waned. He identifies parts of the truck and what those parts do. He has nine small toy garbage cans and almost as many toy garbage trucks. He has played with them approximately 403 consecutive days. We tear up notebook paper and cardboard to use as recycling. For Christmas last year, Santa Claus brought a toddler-sized ride-on garbage truck to keep the sidewalks of Trussville spotless. He has a handful of garbage truck-themed shirts and one hat. It’s serious business.

Aside from the videos and toys, the real-life thing simply can’t be beaten. I point out garbage trucks on every drive. I have stopped atop Mary Taylor Road so that my son can peek inside the nearby landfill, and on more than one occasion have driven to the Waste Management landfill in Moody as a field trip.

But the absolute best day of the week is Wednesday – pickup day. Our toddler’s listening skills magically intensify, and he believes he can hear that truck coming down Roper Road, even though we live closer to Argo than Moody. He wears one of his garbage shirts on pickup day. We’ve recorded dozens of iPhone videos of him waving to the garbage men – and them to him – cans lifting into the air and the front loader tossing all that waste into the back of the truck. I set one video to the song “Good Times Roll” by Jimmie Allen and Nelly, and it remains a favorite.

When Trussville switched from Republic Services to Amwaste last year, the move was met with confusion by our toddler. Why was there no longer a blue recycling truck and another blue regular garbage truck? Why did just one white truck come now? Why, at least for the first month or so, did Amwaste come on days other than Wednesday? It’s consistent now, and we see the same driver each week. He honks the horn, waves, and gives thumbs up to our son, and I swear he waits until he reaches our house to lift the front loader into the air to dump a full load.

Back in the spring, our son napped through garbage pickup one Wednesday. The following Wednesday, the truck didn’t come at all for the first time in months. The next morning, he heard it rumbling up the street. We spent much of the morning outside, watching it dump garbage at a dozen homes. When it made it to our house, the driver waved and leaned out the window. He pointed toward my son.

“I missed him yesterday.”

Gary Lloyd is the author of six books and a contributing writer to the Cahaba Sun.