Originally Posted by
Alloa Akbar
...the state assistance and initiatives offered by the good folks down south.
My personal very first (and last) experience of the "good folks" of Mobile, Alabama, was driving west on the main freeway from Florida, soon after the border Mobile comes up and the old battleship USS Alabama is in a museum close to the road, you see it, and its visitor signage, well in advance. I got there it seemed just after they closed. Ticket office deserted although people still coming out. I go a few steps beyond the office looking for someone, suddenly out comes one of the staff in quasi-naval uniform and bawls rudenesses at me like he was a sergeant (which he possibly once was) and I was a first-week recruit. I was just gob-smacked to be treated at a visitor attraction like this.
It's funny how first impressions stick, but that was mine. By the way, I got back in the car and was over the state line into Mississippi before I stopped again. And despite using that road once or twice since, I've never set foot in Alabama since, and I always recall the unpleasantness when passing the ship.