Raymond Van Winkle

We’re all familiar with Washington Irving’s classic tale of Rip van Winkle, the man who slept for twenty years and awoke to a different world from the one he knew.  When I first read the story as a boy, I thought that some of Irving’s observations were far-fetched.  Now, more than forty years after that reading, I am discovering that he didn’t cover the half of it.  For like his befuddled protagonist, I have also seemingly emerged from an even longer sleep—more than thirty years—to re-engage with a land and family that have undergone significant changes.

When I lived in Colorado, I had contact with my family, but it wasn’t as frequent and regular as it could and should have been.  Oh, there were no quarrels or disagreements that created a hateful silence or unbridgeable schism.  I kept up with my parents and siblings and had a broad understanding of what was going on in their lives.  At the same time, I filled them in on some details of my Colorado life.  Furthermore, I would travel back to Alabama from time to time to see everyone and reconnect.  Then my father died suddenly in 1991 and his death had a profound impact on my extended family.  He was the glue who held things together.  He constantly checked up on kinfolk and not just the ones who lived in Birmingham.  He was a father, uncle, great-uncle and mentor to so many and his death opened a void that nobody filled.

So family members began to drift apart.  My own visits were spaced over wider gaps in time.  My siblings, who had been children when I left, graduated from high school, went to college, got married and became parents themselves.  My mother also returned to work and helped support her grandchildren.  I became the mysterious uncle who lived far away in the West and lived a life beyond the comprehension of most of my extended family.  The years lengthened and changes came; some of them were quite sudden while others were of the slow and gradual kind that overtake one before he is even aware they have transpired.

My arrival last spring has been much like Rip Van Winkle’s awakening and return to his home village.  Before his sleep, he was a colonist and subject of King George III.  He was shocked to learn that now he was a citizen of a new nation and that his loyalty to his former king and country were badly misplaced.  For me, it was the discovery that Alabama had changed somewhat and that my family had new members, young people born during the decades of my absence.  These cousins, nephews and nieces knew little of our family’s history and had their focus on other matters now.  Meeting them and getting to know them has been almost surreal.  I see them and remember when their parents were children.  Or I see them and realize the cousin I knew as a child is now this young boy’s grandfather.

My niece heard me talking about one of her great-grandfathers not too long ago and she wanted to know his name.  This man was my paternal grandfather, but my niece knew nothing about him.  That isn’t too strange because her father, my brother John, had never known either of his grandfathers.  Besides that, our father died years before my niece was even born, so she has little idea of who he was either.

For me, there is still the strangeness of being “Uncle Raymond”.  My brother John was only eleven years old when I moved away.  Now I see his children.  Years ago, the only Uncle Raymond in our family was my father.  Now I have assumed that title and role without the advantage of gradually getting to know these young people.  They have appeared cut out of whole cloth as if by magic.  I know very little about their infancy but am presented with this fully realized child.  I look from the child to the brother or sister who is the parent and I wonder where the years have gone.

Siblings relate their college days and experiences to me.  They talk about getting married and where they spent their honeymoons.  I missed all of that.  I met a young boy not too long ago and upon introducing myself marveled at saying to him, “I’m Raymond and I’m your first cousin twice-removed.  That’s because your great-grandmother and my father were sister and brother, making your grandfather my first cousin.”  Or there is the young girl who came to our house a few weeks ago who is my second cousin twice-removed.  There are also some third cousins of mine lurking around town whom I haven’t run into yet but knew from my previous life here.

Then there are the changes that have occurred in Alabama.  In some ways, the state is as backward and retrograde as it was when I moved here forty years ago.  Southerners are notoriously resistant to change and many are very unhappy with what they see transpiring in the region.  Latinos and Asians are moving into the state, upsetting the demographic balances that have been the norm for decades.  I hear Spanish spoken and see Spanish-language signage in certain establishments making me wonder if I’m in Alabama or back in Colorado sometimes.

My old neighborhood was entirely black when I lived here in the seventies.  Latinos have moved in now, even establishing a Spanish-speaking church just a few blocks from my house.  Old timers grumble about that, saying they want to keep Smithfield and East Thomas black.  The newcomers are regarded with deep suspicion and resentment by some.  I marvel at that, telling my neighbors that whites resisted the integration of their communities in much the same way thirty and forty years ago, and how we should be the last people in the world to adopt that attitude.

It’s not just Latinos who are changing community demographics, either.  Other traditionally black areas are seeing an influx of white folks.  Streets that have not had white residents for seventy years or more are becoming integrated.  Many come because housing is so cheap with a home costing a small fraction of what it would in Denver or Boulder.  In a stunning reversal of roles, some areas are seeing “black flight” as whites return to the city proper and blacks head out to the suburbs and exurbs.

On another front, technological progress is evident everywhere.  From the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, which was one of the training bases for space shuttle astronauts, to the continually sprawling campus of the University of Alabama in Birmingham, the state has embraced the twenty-first century.  Birmingham’s skyline has new skyscrapers; and upscale lofts and condominiums have appeared in once rundown areas on the south side of town.

Alabama itself seems to be more open, more willing to move forward even if that progress is slow.  I think the newcomers and economic necessity have been the engines of that progress.  Otherwise, I would expect matters to be much the same as they were when I moved away.  I will certainly see and learn more when I finally secure some transportation for myself; and I will travel and see as much of the state as possible.  I don’t doubt there are more surprises waiting for me.

Then there are the things that have remained the same, college football being among these.  The game is the top priority in Alabama.  That was true in the past, and if anything the fervor and intensity its fans display have only increased during my absence.  I’ll go into more detail about that in a future entry but for the moment I will say that fanaticism is not too hard a word to describe what the sport means to Alabamians.

Race relations are about the same as they were in the past, which is something I will examine in greater depth later.  For now I will say that there is an equilibrium between the two major demographic groups—black and white folks—in Alabama.  That’s not to say that the old attitudes don’t exist anymore because they most certainly do.  But they have been driven underground more or less these days.  Many factors have contributed to that, not the least of which is Barack Obama’s election as president.

So I have “awakened” to a different world just as old Rip Van Winkle did.  He had to make adjustments to accommodate the new reality and I must do the same.  Thankfully, I’m being ably assisted by my family and friends.  Without their help, I would be unhappy and dissatisfied.  My biggest problem has been homesickness for Colorado.  Some days are better than others fighting it and my family has patiently listened to my lamentations.  I know I’ll always love Colorado and the West.  The challenge now is making room in my heart for Alabama and the South.