Welcome

Whatever Tuscaloosa is, it's home

• Tuscaloosa is history underfoot and pressed against the downtown sidewalks and rising skyward in crusty storefronts that first saw the light of day on Victorian dirt streets.

• It’s not a city particularly known for its food, but don’t tell that to the people who stand in line at the Waysider for country ham with eggs, red-eye gravy and hot butter biscuits — and a chance to see who walks in with whom on a Sunday morning.

• It’s crackling-crisp afternoons when The Bama Nation, that great, leveling amalgamation of true believers and dyspeptic cynics, converges on Bryant-Denny Stadium, openly or secretly praying for glory in the thin, golden light of fall.

• It’s summers of smothering, glasses-fogging heat, curiously comfortable after the violent spring storms, and winters when mists lie flat and cold over the river.

• The city isn’t deep enough south for magnolias and Spanish moss. The oaks reign here -- ancient gnarled giants that erupt in sexual frenzy in the spring and sleep it off under the summer sun.

• It’s a city of whispering pines and flowering tulips, flamingo-hued azaleas and poetic dogwoods with cross-shaped blossoms that speak of a grander order and symmetry.

• Most of all, it’s the people. They’re interesting, warm and friendly — and sometimes cranky, grouchy and eccentric. Get to know them, and you may never want to leave Tuscaloosa.

It’s Tuscaloosa. It’s home.

By Ben Windham
excerpt from "Whatever Tuscaloosa is, it's home"