Roll Tide

The South.

Land of Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Allman Brothers Band, corn bread and sweet tea, Mark Twain and William Faulkner, the American Civil War. The Civil War was a foreign war as Alaska had been claimed as part of a European country, Russia, for decades by the time the first shells fell on Fort Sumter. It was still tucked away from the world stage, and first contact between the people of the interior valleys and outside traders was still happening.

The most I ever saw of Civil War history in my hometown was in the historical graveyard downtown, and I was surprised to see a civil war veteran had ended up in it when I was reading all the tombstone engravings. He had moved to Fairbanks in its earliest days after the gold rush of the 20th century, decades after the war ended. He fell in love with the place and clearly never left.

But one thing I haven’t associated the south with is rain. The coast from Mississippi to Florida to the Carolinas is one of wettest parts of the country. But it doesn’t make me hesitate because bad weather makes good pictures., and before long I’m headed to Fort Morgan, an old Confederate fort at the mouth of Mobile Bay. During the Union’s Anaconda plan, the fort covered their blockade runners with protective fire as they tried to escape the tightening grasp of the Union’s Anaconda plan.

Little droplets of rain fall like confection from an ocean of unbroken grey lacking texture. Almost all the cars are heading north and leaving the peninsula I’m headed down. It’s looking like I’ll have the entire park around the fort to myself… my luck is never this good! A few rain drops start to smack into the windshield of the F-150 and I relax in the dry cab. You’re not getting to me yet, storm. It’s my last day with the truck since I’m delivering it tomorrow, and I will admit that part of me is thinking I could just disappear with it…

Soon more drops start to fall and I turn on the window wipers. Hmmm… a storm seems to be blowing in? Five miles outside my destination a severe weather alert came on the radio warning of 60 mph gusts and torrential thunderstorms, and advising people to take shelter in an interior room in their home and stay away from windows. Ohhhh, that explains why everyone was leaving. I knew, a priori from geography and season, that it would be bad out, although I’ve underestimated the brewing drama. I made it to the park’s gate where a guy emerged from a hut and made no attempt to hide how annoyed he was that he had to come into the rain to meet me. He said the old civil war fort is an outdoor walking experience and I’ll get drenched. I paid the 8 bucks and headed in, content to wait it out in the cab. The wind and rain picked up and I realized the weather warning wasn’t bullshit. A huge branch was ripped from it’s tree and fell sideways to the ground. And then I saw something new - an upwards waterfall; a waterlift. The rain was so thick and the wind so strong that rain was pushed up the walls of the old fort and was carried horizontally away over the roof in a steady stream. The truck started to rock from side to side and I turned it into the wind. Holy shit, this is intense!

I had never seen a storm like this where the heavens broke and an ocean fell.

For hours I waited in the truck for a break in the rain that never came. Under darkening skies and minutes before the park closed I accepted my fate that I’d get wet and made a mad dash to the inside of the fort, eager to see it before I leave. Forts have always held a fascination with me, and I can vividly recall visiting Castillo Del Morro on Puerto Rico when I was twelve. I rush through the outer wall tunnel, through the inner section between walls, and into the open core. The rain, just as heavy on either side of the inner wall, fades away when I’m in the heart of it and standing where the fate of a nation was decided. Wow. To be inside a piece of tumultuous history where defenders stood in a box behind their guns and waited in it to be attacked, essentially living under a sword of Damocles until the enemy mustered their forces and made it all real. But Damocles had it easy, for he lived under his sword for only a short while before begging to be released from his position, while fort defenders sustain themselves for years.

At night I glanced out the window and saw everything looked hazy. Was there a fire? I opened the window and was met with a wave of watery air that I can feel on my face. What is this madness?? I check the weather online and the agency is reporting 97% humidity. 97%!! I’ve never experienced this before, so of course I grabbed the camera and headed into the night air that I could almost drink. The roofs are dripping and it sounds like it's raining out, but it's just condensate dripping off. Everything is covered in a glistening patina, and I had to constantly wipe moisture from the lens. Letting it go for jut a few seconds would allow droplets to form on the lens, which I’ll admit make for some neat effects with light flares. So at times I do that and see what happens, like shaking the kaleidoscope and seeing what new images appear.

Some of them are Blade Runner-esque, and Phillip K. Dick must surely have seen something like this to create that futuristic atmosphere.

So from neo-industrial conflict of the past to future impressionism the one constant is water. I think when it rains now there’s a chance that I’ll recall my time in the South, this place where the ocean and sky are sometimes one and the same.