This small JPEG is perfectly charateristic of it's type of sign along the major highways of the Heart of Dixie: the name suggests some puffin of man, well-connected, an ol' boy, and I doubt if one out of every 100 passing motorists has any idea who John Harbert III is. Or was. (They probably do love puffins, though.)
So, am I historically naive? Culturally illiterate? An ingrate in the great state of Alabamy? Well, probably the third of those three. Harbert established a successful construction company. Similarly, in western Birmingham there's a Richard Scrushy Parkway. Scrushy headed HealthSouth... until they got caught cheating on the accounts. Worthy of note as well: US 280 through Talladega County is the Jim Nabors Highway. Yes, a highway named after Gomer Pyle.
Anyway, visit Alabama and wonder, for whom is Seibels Freeway named? Who was Sally Minus and did she jump from this bridge or what? And drive on, confident in the knowledge that not even half the natives know the answers to those questions, but we have all seen a few episodes of Gomer Pyle, USMC. |
