True story:

I was at the Alabama State Fair with my two brothers back in the early sixties.

As we were leaving on foot to go to the car, a limousine came by and stopped. We didn't even know the governor had been there that night.

The "Little Judge" rolled his window down in the back of the limousine and he started a conversation with us kids. He asked us about our visit at the fair and made small talk for a while.

Just us three brothers and the governor.

Whatever else you've heard about George Wallace and his politics, I'll bet you haven't heard anything like that about another governor.

I never forgot it.

Later on at a Labor Day Rally in Tuscaloosa, I went to the restroom to pee. Don Seigleman can in and peed in the same trough. He was Secretary of State at the time.

We zipped up, washed our hands and made small talk about it being so hot or something like that. I told my wife I was honored to have peed in the same trough as the Secretary of State.

[Glad they let him out of jail, btw. He seems like a pretty good guy to me.]

Neil Bonnet lived just up the road. My dad-in-law built the cabinets in his house and did the woodwork in his den. Neil came down and watched me working on a machine one day that Papa had built.

Got my hair cut in the chair next to Bobby Allison one day. Listened to him and the barber, Chalmers Chism talk all kinds of racing. His shop was just up from our house in Hueytown for a while when I was a kid.

My kids raced go carts with Davey at a track in Dolemite. They loved Davey. He was good with kids. They weren't too impressed when Neil and Ironhead were signing autographs at Neil's little racing store by Steve's Grocery. They said Ironhead acted like he didn't much want to be there doing that.

Watched Red Farmer race slot cars with the kids at the slot car tracks in the Holiday Bowling Alley building when I was a kid. He beat everybody that raced him with slot cars too. We could buy Jack's Hambugers just across the Super Highway for 15 cents each.

My wife was in Bham looking for a job right after we got married. Pres. Richard Nixon was in town, but she wasn't paying him much attention. His convoy had traffic stopped, so she asked a Bham cop if she could sit on his three-wheeler while they waited on the convoy to clear out. Nixon saw her sitting there and stopped, got out shook her hand while making small talk. She was pretty, so I can't blame him for that.

She got a job at Lloyd Nolan Hospital. Eddy Arnold's son was in a wreck nearby and was injured seriously. She saw Eddy quite a bit since he was coming in to check on his son. He rode in the elevator with her and they talked about it one day.

Al Gore flew into our neighborhood in '98 after the big tornado that wiped out part of it and killed lots of people here. I was a volunteer with the fire department back then. We had to quit what we were doing to make sure he had fire protection when his helicopter landed. All the Alabama Power crews had to lower their buckets and stop work while he was in the area.

Him and Tipper came over to talk to us firefighters, but I managed to avoid them. I wished they hadn't showed up and the power crews and all the other workers who were there helping us could have kept on working to help our community get our utilities we needed restored. I think Out back said he was here then. Thanks Out back.