Ready to leave
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12/30/2010
My wife and I left Anaheim, CA in 2005 to live in Scottsboro, AL so she could be near her mom who had been suffering from Alzheimer's disease. We knew her mom's end could be near but we were prepared to stay as long as necessary. While living here, we decided to work and pursue college. I was quite unfamiliar with the southern way of life but Scottsboro offers an obvious sampling of what living in a small southern town is all about. The culture shock for me were such things as the dialect, the conservative mindset, the "southern hospitality", the Civil War celebrations, etc. Those things were not necessarily bad. And the low rent, affordable housing, down-home cooking, and slow pace were certainly positives. However, what really works against the grain for me as an African American is the bigotry and racism I've encountered here in this small area. Let's face it. You can find that kind of ugliness anywhere. But in larger urban areas, at least you have more space to move around in, to sort of off-set the painfulness of racism, and you can find a bit more liberal-mindedness within larger, more progressive communities. They say Scottsboro hasn't changed much in the last 200 years. Since 2008, my wife's mom has died and we both have gotten our bachelor's degrees. We've both applied for and have been accepted into the masters degree program at Liberty University in Lynchburgh, VA. We plan, Lord willing, to move to Virginia in January 2011. We will relocate to either Virginia Beach or Norfolk. As far as Scottsboro, AL, we're ready to leave.
Elliott | Scottsboro, AL