ALBUMS: Willie Nelson’s Greatest Hits (1981); Always on My Mind (1982)
MVC Rating: Greatest Hits 4.5/$$$; Always 4.0/$$
My early memories of these go back to my graduation from Auburn University, my marriage, and my first career-like job as special correspondent to the Birmingham News.
I worked out of a house I rented on 15 acres of land on Nesbitt Lake Road in Jacksonville AL. Rent $250 a month. It got cold out in the country with only space heaters.
I lived there with my newly wedded wife, Catherine. (H.S. College sweethearts. Still sweethearts.) My dog, Maggie, a Border Collie/Shelty -like dog, smartest I’d ever had. (No offense Lucy, Molly and Gus.)
I was out in this idyllic corner of Calhoun at the behest of my employer, The Birmingham News. We put up a rope swing on a hill in the front yard. We were still kids, Cat and I. And having the time of our lives on a weekly paycheck of $169 (After deductions).
My beat as a reporter was Calhoun, Etowah and Talladega counties. And it was a hard scrabble living for many who lived in this area. (Writer Rick Bragg grew up around these parts and he later bought his mother a house on Nesbitt Lake Road (after we left.) I later worked with Rick at the Birmingham News building downtown on 4th Ave North and 22nd Street.
But before I end this little pre-history, I have to say living out there could also be cold and lonely and very real and alive with insects, wild turkeys, deer, stray dogs, and occasionally a loose farm animal, like a pig who had wandered from across the street. One night we stopped at the closest establishment, a little restaurant and beer joint at the end of Nesbitt Lake Road, not far from town. We noticed some young people playing cards — nothing harcore here, it was UNO, a mindless popular game at the time. We took notice because we knew the game well.. The participants included soldiers from nearby Fort McClellan. We stayed a while watching them and talking.
Next day we found out a woman in the group shot a man to death at the table they were playing cards on, the result of a lover’s spat, the police said.
In this beat out in rural Alabama, I covered murder investigations , including Audrey Marie Hilley, dubbed the Black Widow because she killed her husband with arsenic, and tried to kill her daughter and other relatives by the same method. She disappeared after being charged and lived under aliases in different states for years before being brought to justice. She died of hypothermia in the woods near a prison she had escaped.
That was one of the wildest crime cases I remember covering. I believe one of the Birmingham’s Tom Gordon covered the trial. I did cover another case of Billy Wayne Waldrop, who thought it would be good idea to carve his initials in the body of a person he killed: BWW.. Waldrop was sentenced to death and was executed about 20 years ago.
There were other stories, the infield hijinx at the Talladega 500, the body of and unidentified teenager on the side of the road in Talladega, a visit to the abandoned house where a family was all murdered years ago. The door creaked open when I pushed it. It was empty. There was and old dusty calendar on the wall opened to the month and year the slaughter had occurred.
I also met and spent some time with an ambitious deputy prosecutor from Gadsden (or near Gadsden). His name was Roy Moore. Yep that Roy Moore, the former federal judge who became famous initially for his placement and then refusal to take out from the Federal Court building a large stone carving of the Ten Commandments.
I still have a 45 record Moore gave me of some Christmas music he had recorded.
For all of this, I worked hard learning the trade that involves asking questions and communicating to readers in a most timely fashion.
On my turntable nearly every night was Willie Nelson, his soothing but pleasant voice making everything all right. Occasionally, on the weekends, I’d put on the Stray Cats. Updated 1950s music. My two albums, one a two-record greatest hit, just about covered the highlights: On the Road Again, Whiskey River, Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain, Angel Flying too Close to the Ground (where he beats the hell out of his bass string on his guitar.) The guitar — Trigger — with the hole in it from wear. Of course his hit at the time was ‘Always on My Mind.’ Since it wasn’t on the Hits album (too new) we bought ‘Always on My Mind,’ album. it was my wife’s favorite song at that time.
Later when I moved downtown to Birmingham, I went to see Willie play at the Alabama State Fair. I was on the second row with about eight people from the Birmingham News.
The front row, at this outdoor concert with chairs. sat, wrapped in all sorts of leather, a biker gang. We tried hard not to spill any beer and cheap nachos on them.