Alabama Fondly Recalls A Time When It Had Class, Slavery

Story by Meagan Jungman 

| Published Nov 17, 2009

Last Sunday, citizens across the great state of Alabama leaned back in their wicker rocking chairs and conjured memories of simpler, happier times.

“They had it right back then.” claims Duane Buchanan, manager of Cordova’s local Piggly Wiggly supermarket. “Back then, a fellah did all his social networking at the local church or in the town center when he needed to buy a sack of iron nails or a fine, young Nubian slave. Nowadays, with that damn World Wide Web hooplah, it’s hard to know if you’re actually talking to a man, a woman, or god forbid, a Methodist.”

Many natives have often spent their peaceful southern evenings wondering if Alabama had long since reached the apex of human achievement in the 1800s. Historians claim that petty things, such as the discovery of penicillin, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the integration of the cut-off shirt into contemporary fashion cannot hope to hold a candle to the dashing mannerisms of a pre-Civil War society.

“I’ve watched 'Gone with the Wind' at least 32 times,” said Anabelle Reeves, a professor of American History at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. “And so, as one of the greatest authorities on that portion of the 19th century, I can honestly say that if you wanted to live in the South, that was the time to do it. It doesn’t get much better than that. Ever. And Vivien Leigh’s performance was absolutely breathtaking.”

“I mean the facts are all there. You just have to compare and contrast,” added Reeves. “Me? I prefer a Venn Diagram.”

Indicating the giant interlocking circles drawn on the chalkboard behind her, she continued.

“Folkish charm has been replaced with neurotic northern mistrust. The local squadrons of Klan members have been replaced with the pixilated images of Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly, and people are now more inclined to eat McDonald's than sit down to a mess of crawdads. Men once held duels for a woman’s honor, and now they just engage in organized wrestling. Where there once were fields of jovial African slaves, there now sulks a small army of underpaid Latin-Americans. Where has the class gone? I fear that it has gone — gone with the wind.”

“Things sure was better back before the Civil War,” said a wistful Governor Robert Riley to no one in particular. “Yessir, folks was honest, wholesome, God-fearin’ people with a strong sense of family values and good, old-fashioned southern know-how. What happened?”

A recent poll reveals an overwhelming number of Alabamians share their governor’s sentimental sentiments. Sixty-five percent of those surveyed expressed the desire for “time to have just stopped after 1858 and things to have never, ever changed,” while 20 percent claim that progress is necessary, for without it they would not have access to welfare or NASCAR. The remaining 15 percent claim they would support the halting of time on the grounds that they could bring high-octane automobiles and their weekly unemployment checks back with them into the mid-19th century.