Goshen, Alabama—I am on a dirt road. Above me is a canopy of shade oaks, stretching to Beulah Land. I am surrounded by thousands of acres of farmland.
With me is Darren.
Darren is mayor of Goshen. He is young, but he has gray in his sideburns. He is a paramedic, a captain for Troy Fire Department, a volunteer firefighter for Pike County, and he cuts grass for a living.
“This is a tiny town,” says Darren. “You gotta do lotta jobs to make ends meet.”
Town Hall sits off the highway. It’s a brick building—small as a Waffle House. The place doubles as a senior center and cafeteria.
On weekdays, the kitchen serves complimentary country fare: fried chicken, okra, collards, and potato salad.
“Lotta our residents are old,” says Darren. “It’s important for us to take care of our own.”
I meet one such elder. Mister Jimmy—a man with hair like snow and a voice like ribbon cane syrup. He shows me black-and-white photos from Goshen’s glory days. He tells stories.
“Did Darren tell you about Goshen’s claim to fame?”
No sir, not
yet.
They show me a ledger book with yellowed pages and loose binding. It contains jail records, dating to the nineteen-hundreds. If anyone ever spent a night in Goshen’s one-room drunk tank, it’s written here.
Darren points to a page. The cursive handwriting reads: “Hank Williams, 1943.”
“Public drunkenness,” remarks Mister Jimmy. “Hank used’a travel with a medicine show, playing music. He was known to have a wild time.”
When Mister Jimmy was freckled and barefoot, he saw Hank several times. The string band would play atop a flatbed trailer. The whole town would turn out.
“Goshen’s always been close-knit,” says Mister Jimmy. “Used’a have street parties. We’d rope off roads, have covered-dish deals, country dances.”
Country dances. Potlucks. Traditions which have faded in parts of the Southeast.
But not here.
Darren takes me for a…