What's Old Is New Again

This morning, as a special treat, my Birmingham niece and two grand-nieces took me to Railroad Park, a place I have visited once before with them. 

A gem in the town where I grew up, the park was lively with walkers and runners, a grandmother with an adorable little boy, a friendly guard, and a gardener dead-heading some spectacularly tall cone flowers. Even the dragonflies were flitting and sandpipers fluting. 

The new Barons stadium, Regions Field, sports a logo and clean stands. We were supposed to visit it last evening at the very moment we arrived a couple of blocks away at Children's. In another direction, I saw the Merita bread factory and asked if it was still baking. My niece wasn't sure, but if I squinted my eyes and perked my nose, I could almost catch a whiff of the warm doughy smell I loved so in childhood. 

Another quarter turn revealed several freight trains coming and going along the tracks dividing S from N in avenue names. They clacked along the tracks, rocking and clicking from there to here, moving like my memory, slowly. Above the cars, downtown buildings sprout. A tall smokestack, brick red, stands like a memorial to the sooty city of my childhood. Birmingham, Iron City, Magic City, Bombingham -- a dark place and dark time for many.

Before leaving, my family gathered and waved like the queen, though I'm the one who felt like the queen today, treated, as I was, to kindness and good citizenship and love on a little sojourn in a beautiful place with beautiful people.

Note: V is still sporting her Children's Hospital ID bracelet.