Rocking In Prattville

With a lovely historic downtown located close to a tree-lined river, Prattville looks like the kind of place destined to be discovered by hipsters.

When we visited on a Sunday afternoon, the stores all seemed to be closed, just like they were in many towns throughout America on Sundays when I was a child.

We went to Prattville to take part in rock hunting, a project started by a local resident about a year ago.  She hid 500 hand-painted rocks for people to find just for fun, like an Easter egg hunt.

Angie suggested Emma paint some stones.  We'd picked two big rocks up at Chewacla Park, but Angie brought out some perfect smooth stones picked up on a prior vacation.  Angie also provided paint to develop a fun crafts project for Emma the prior evening.

As we walked by the river and downtown Prattville, Emma hid the ones she and Angie painted, also casually looking around for hidden stones. The objective is to share photos of found stones with Prattville Rocks, a facebook group.

I can't say our search was too vigorous, but we enjoyed wandering around while Emma bounded about considerably faster.  At one point, she and her daddy were running down to the river when a bee landed on her.  The bee stung Emma, but she didn't cry or make a fuss, possibly because several adults were soon administering loving care.

Aunt Ann and Cousin Steve in Prattville

While over the years I've thought regularly about visiting my country relatives, it was my Aunt Ann being forced into the hospital by serious health complications that prompted Julie and I to get off the dime in February.

Her son Steve, who has always been like a brother to me, had also been knocked down hard a year ago by his medical emergency from which it took months to recover.  I obviously had him on my priority-to-visit list, too.

Steve Parker, Michael Treadwell, Wes and James Treadwell

In February, however, Aunt Ann, said she preferred we not come until she was feeling much better, so we  made plans for the first week in May.  As promised, Aunt Ann recovered strongly, and in fact she looked fantastic, dressed meticulously, with a beautiful new hairdo.  Looking in her face is almost like looking at my late mother, so that is quite a treat for us.  We have a deep connection.

Before I was born, my family lived at the family farm following my dad's  second Army hitch, during which he'd seen California for the first time.  The rest of Dad's family moved from North Dakota to find a new life in the Golden State, settling around Los Angeles.

Wes, Angie, Aunt Ann, Cherry, Steve, Granddaddy

My dad's brother contracted Polio, and Dad decided our family should go to California to be closer as he fought through this terrible illness.  Bob survived but lost the use of his left arm, which hung limply by his side for as long as I knew him.  It also severely damaged his lungs, so he died before he was the age I am currently, which is much too young.

Just as an aside, when I hear about self-righteous parents who refuse to vaccinate their kids because they've never seen bad effects in their neighborhoods, I'm outraged.  They have no idea how fortunate they are to have access to such medical miracles.

In any case, on the day we were set to leave the farm and head to California, Aunt Ann picked up baby Wesley and ran toward the cornfields, saying they couldn't take me away.

Steve and Darlene Parker

Of course, Ann knew such a desperate measure wouldn't work for more than a few minutes, but she had grown very close to me.  

She was already a teen-aged bride, having married her persistent suitor Roy, and she soon had a baby boy of her own, my cousin Steve.

Skipping forward to last year, the prospect of losing cousin Steve so young was upsetting for me, but certainly much harder on his wife Darlene and the rest of his family.  They stayed by his side, helping him through his recovery, and now he seems all the way back.  Well, maybe not quite as energetic as before, but that's probably because he also cut back drastically on sugar and starches since his hospitalization.

Steve at Daniel Pratt Monument with old Pratt Factory Across the River

We didn't get a chance to visit with the rest of his family members, understanding that we are essentially strangers to them personally.  I included some photos copied from social media below.  It's not their fault my family moved to California a long time ago.

Much further back, in 1819, 20-year-old Daniel Pratt completed an apprenticeship in architecture and bid farewell to his New Hampshire home.  He moved to Georgia to practice his new craft by designing beautiful plantation homes for wealthy cotton-planters.

The planters had benefited from Eli Whitney's groundbreaking invention, the cotton gin ("gin" being short for engine), which made the formerly labor-intensive task of refining cotton into a mechanical breeze.

Whitney patented his invention early in President George Washington's second term, in 1794.  He imagined lucrative profits ahead by cleaning newly profitable cotton crops, but farmers balked at paying his steep rates, often pirating his system which wasn't that complicated.

Patent-infringing competitors sprang up, and Whitney spent so much time and money suing to stop them that he finally decided to switch to making weapons for the U.S. military.

He popularized the concept of interchangeable parts.  When the government said that they could make the weapons cheaper in their own armories, Whitney proved that once costs like insurance and rent were factored in, his guns were actually cheaper.  In essence, Whitney was a pioneer in "cost accounting" including the concept of "fixed costs" in a world that never considered anything other than how much they pocketed at the end.

Whitney never made a fortune on the cotton gin despite it being widely hailed as a landmark invention of the industrial age.  Daniel Pratt did.

In 1827, just two years after Whitney's death, Pratt landed a job as manager at a cotton gin manufacturer and did such a great job that he was made partner within a year.

Five years later, Pratt advocated expanding to Alabama, but his partner backed out, fretting about problems between settlers and the Cherokee.  In 1833, Pratt made the move on his own.  He bought 1,000 acres on the banks of Autauga Creek for $21 an acre, half of which was paid in cotton gins he would manufacture at his new factory to be built in what would become Prattville.  He used the river current for power like the DuPonts had in Delaware.  This factory made Pratt a bundle, which he invested in other industries including railroads.

Cotton gins were produced in Prattville by subsequent ownership of Pratt's factories until 2009, when all production was outsourced to India, part of that sucking sound of American jobs leaving the country as predicted by Ross Perot.

Pratt's former partner proved to be correct about the potential troubles of the culture clash with native Americans, but Pratt's gamble proved correct financially.

Between 1836 and 1839, the Trail of Tears rounded up Cherokee from all around the south and forced them to relocate to "Indian Territory" in present-day Oklahoma, one of the saddest chapters in American history.

The Cherokee had tried to work with the settlers in many ways, including intermarriage, which they saw as key to survival in a rapidly changing country, but to no avail.

You can learn more about the Trail of Tears and other important eras of the state at the beautiful, free Museum of Alabama in Montgomery.

Some speculate that slavery may have ended much sooner in the United States had the invention of the cotton gin not made growing "upland short cotton" profitable.

Angie and Steve Livingston

Fortunately, no law-abiding American is now enslaved or forced to go anywhere they don't choose to go.  Like us, Angie and Steve Livingston love traveling.  Their focus has been our amazing National Parks, camping under the stars and occasionally taking by-roads to historical sites they happen upon, filling their National Parks Passport book with stamps.

All of us should take advantage of this historically unique opportunity afforded by the freedom that comes with being Americans at this time.

Where will go next, and what will you do there?

A Few More Photos of Family Found On Social Media

Aunt Ann Parker

Steve Parker and daughter Tabitha Ragsdale

Steve with Granddaughter Alina Ragsdale

Darlene and Steve's son Brett Adams and sons

Darlene and Steve's daughter Lindsey with hubby Jimmy and kids

Jonathan Gibbons and Friends on St. Patrick's Day

Zach Gibbons and fiancée Tyler Ingram

Steve Parker and Wes When We Were Younger than Zach and Jon