Thomas A. Danjczek, President, Steel Manufacturers Association, cited numerous reasons for the recognition of CMC Steel Alabama. They provided volunteers to clear the debris, short-term financial assistance to employees and food and cooks at shelters. They also continue to serve local families affected by the tornadoes.

Tracy Porter, President CMC Americas, said, “One of the fundamental values of CMC is our commitment to our employees and the communities in which they live and work, and we are very proud of our team’s efforts to support the Birmingham community in a time of need.  We are honored to receive this award and would like to thank the SMA and member companies for recognizing CMC Steel Alabama.”

CMC management will formally accept the award at the SMA Annual Members Conference in Washington, DC today.

It is exciting to see CMC Steel Alabama recognized in this way on a national level, but it is not surprising. Their response to the storms is in line with what I’ve observed since moving to this area five years ago. CMC strives to be a good neighbor to Woodlawn and Crestwood. This is evidenced by their presence at various neighborhood association meetings, their numerous employee neighborhood cleanup days, their dedicated membership of the Woodlawn Business Association and their support of our local schools.

I am thankful for the work they do in our community and beyond and look forward to offering my congratulations in person the next time I run into one of their employees at a neighborhood meeting or Woodlawn Business Association meeting.

Introduction to Acrylic Painting
Mondays in June: 4, 11, 18, 25, 6-8 pm
Learn the basics of painting with acrylic paint in 4 2-hour classes at City Arts Boutique.  Whether you are a beginner, or want to fine-tune your painting skills, this class is a great way to do either in a casual setting. Advanced registration required.  Supply list will be provided before the first class.  Space is limited!
Cost: $100 for four classes
Taught by Birmingham artist, Allison Rhea.
Email cityartsboutique@gmail.com or call 902.3181 to sign up or for more information.

City Arts: Bottles and Brushes
Tuesday June 5, 6-8 pm
Bring your favorite bottle of wine, come grab a brush and learn to paint a beautiful painting with talented Birmingham artist Allison Rhea. Come with friends, or meet new ones here!
Cost: $30.00 covers all materials and sends you home with a beautiful painting Advance registration. All materials included. Space is limited!

“Recipe for Press” Workshop with Amy Flurry
Thursday June 7, 5-6:30
Learn how to be your own publicist in this workshop by “Recipe for Press” author Amy Flurry.  Amy will explain how to engage with today’s influencers and inspire them to write about your brand.  This workshop is valuable for small business owners, artists, writers, and more!
$40.00 advanced registration.  Space is limited.
Email cityartsboutique@gmail.com or call 902.3181 to sign up or for more information.

City Arts Boutique is a new concept combined gallery, shop, and studio presenting the work of over 30 local Birmingham artists. Located in 55th Place Arts in Historic Woodlawn on the corner of 1st Ave S and 55th Place S. at 5528 1st Ave S.

Mark Gold, one of the new owners of the Crestwood Festival Center will be meeting with some area neighborhood leaders next week. Darrell O’Quinn, Crestwood Community President and Crestwood North Neighborhood Association Vice President, has agreed to take the35212 readers’ feedback to the meeting. If you have any questions, comments or suggestions about the Crestwood Festival Center for Mr. Gold, please email them to the35212@gmail.com by Monday, May 7 at 5 p.m.

To keep up with all Crestwood Festival news and updates, follow them on facebook and twitter.

Bring a blanket or lawn chair and enjoy some great music in our community!

Last night I placed an order online at Freshfully.com for our first Moore Farms weekly veggie box. The boxes have been available since last fall  when Freshfully first kicked off its online business, but having the new Avondale store as a pickup location sealed the deal for me. This week’s box will have Florida tomatoes and oranges, green beans, sweet potatoes, lettuce and two more items.

I’m thrilled to have an option for fresh and local foods just minutes from Crestwood and Woodlawn, and I love knowing that by spending money there, I’m supporting economic development, urban revitalization, local business owners and local farmers. I’ll definitely be a frequent shopper and hope many neighbors will be, too.

Freshfully’s grand opening celebration will be held May 3-5. A schedule of special events can be found here. For more information about Freshfully’s store inventory, online offerings hours and location, visit their website at www.freshfully.com. And here’s a great article about Freshfully from the Birmingham News.

They will celebrate with a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Thursday, March 29 at 8:45 a.m. and a  Grand Opening sale on Saturday, March 31^st from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. All are invited to attend.

You can learn about the Jimmie Hale Mission here. For more  information about Mission Possible Bargain Centers, go here.

Crestwood has had numerous notable residents, but probably the most famous was Theophilus Eugene Connor, known to Birmingham and the world as “Bull”.

Connor, son of a railroad dispatcher, grew up on the move. His eye was shot out by a friend’s air rifle while he was a student in North Birmingham, and he never did manage to graduate from high school. Instead he took jobs as a telegraph operator and salesman. He became well known as a radio announcer for the Barons, using the nickname “Bull”, an allusion to syndicated  columnist “Dr. B. U. L. Conner”. His popularity and name recognition helped him win unlikely election to the state legislature in 1934, where he came under the influence of Senator Jim Simpson and returned to Birmingham as a City Commissioner.

As Commissioner of Public Safety, Connor took the reins of the Police Department. Despite an early commitment to openness and against patronage, he eventually began using the force as a personal goon squad. His strong-arm tactics, and commitment to preserving racial segregation made him an intractable incumbent in the 1941, 1945 and 1949 elections. A police sting made public his dalliances with a secretary in 1952. Though the criminal charge of occupying a room at the Tutwiler with a woman not his wife was dismissed, he sat out the 1953 election and took to operating a gas station on 41st Street in Avondale. Birmingham voters missed his braggadocio, however, and narrowly returned him to office in 1957.

In the name of preserving “order”, Connor neither deterred nor investigated incidents of violence perpetrated against African Americans and Civil Rights advocates. The Ku Klux Klan operated freely within certain boundaries defined by Connor, who went so far as to arrange a 15-minute minute window of opportunity for the vicious beating of Freedom Riders at Birmingham’s Trailways bus station in 1961.

Progressive interests found it necessary to change Birmingham’s entire form of government in order to remove Connor from office in 1963. The political drama unfolded as a sideshow to events on the streets coordinated by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. Those demonstrations, orchestrated to raise Connor’s hackles enough to provoke a violent response. Connor provided one so brutal that the nation, President Kennedy and Congress could no longer ignore the need for federal Civil Rights legislation. As every story requires a villain, historians credit Connor, more than any other single individual, with ensuring timely passage of a Civil Rights Act in 1964.

During this time, Connor resided in Crestwood and attended Woodlawn Methodist Church. His antics brought him into conflict with at least one of his pastors. In Paul Hemphill’s memoir “Leaving Birmingham” John Rutland recalled confronting him on the steps of the church and threatening to have the Sheriff arrest him if he didn’t leave.

Connor went on to serve two terms in the Alabama Public Service Commission and died after a stroke in 1973. He went to his grave believing in the superiority of his race and the need for segregation. For more on Connor, read William Nunnelley’s 1991 biography, and keep an eye out for an upcoming book by Birmingham Public Library archivist Jim Baggett.

Speaking of the library, after writing up this profile I called the Southern History desk and asked a librarian there to find Connor’s Crestwood address in the city directory. We in the 35212 can relax, the arch-villain of Birmingham actually lived on the 1100 block of 53rd Street, in the 35222.

Image courtesy of Birmingham Public Library Archives, via Bhamwiki.com.

A few friends have been asking me how I went about learning to swim in my 30′s, and I was just thinking about this while swimming tonight, so I thought I would put down a few of my thoughts while they are fresh on my mind. I hope these are helpful. Remember, I am not an expert. I am just somebody who does this a lot and only started a couple of years ago.

So you want to learn to swim?

1. Find a copy of “Total Immersion Swimming: Freestyle Made Easy”.
This video is available at the Birmingham library, and is also available for purchase at Amazon. It’s great for coordinating your movements and breathing, and for me, all I had to do was begin to think of it differently. I had always thought of this windmill motion, scooping water, and this technique is more of a reaching/stretching forward and rocking from one side to the other. It just works better.  Watch this a few times, then practice your technique until you get it right. It will be a while before it is streamlined, but trust me on this. It’s brilliant.

2. Get a decent swimsuit.
Those bathing suits they sell that look cute are going to last about a month in that pool at the Y. I know this because I absolutely wore mine out – I have never done this before! The Lycra or spandex or whatever just gave out. Not cool. So, find yourself a Speedo or other lap-swimming suit. You’re welcome to not take my word for it right away, though, as I understand the investment. But watch your suit and get another one before the butt goes saggy.

3. Get a good pair of goggles (NOT the kid ones at Kmart).
I recommend the Speedo Vanquisher. They have a pretty decent gasket that doesn’t give you rings around your eyes. I am convinced they all fog up once you get warmed up, though.

4. If you have hair, get a swim cap.
It makes your hair less of an issue. If your hair is long, every time you turn or try to get air, you’re going to get a face full of hair instead. Swim cap – problem solved. Swim caps do come with instructions, and yes they are a pain. I put my hair in sort of a pony tail or bun first, which means I have a lumpy swim cap head. Do I care? No, I do not. I don’t have to look at myself while I’m swimming. And everybody looks like a dork in a swim cap, but they are dorks that don’t get a mouth full of hair while they’re swimming.

5. Join the Y.
…or someplace that has an indoor pool. (This is obvious, but I had to put that plug in there to get me some Y points. Tell them I sent ya’!) Also I will tell you that the Y has other resources and perks that you can take advantage of – I originally joined the Y for the deal on summer day camp. And just look at me now!

6. Find out the aquatics schedule.
It changes by seasons, usually, and they have more or fewer lanes open for lap swimming at different times of day.  When you’re just starting out, you do not need to share a lane with somebody (I hate doing it anyway, and have been hit a couple of times in the process), so I recommend going at odd times or starting in winter, when more lanes will be open. They don’t have swim lessons in winter, and most normal people are not thinking about swimming in December. We are not normal, though – keep that in mind. Do not attempt to learn how to swim in the hot summer months. The pool will be full of people and it will piss you off.

7. Pack your bag.
Keep a swim bag with your stuff in it. (As I type this I realize I did not hang up my wet stuff!) Put your suit, goggles, cap, towel, a hairbrush, hair bands, shampoo/soap (if you plan to shower), and a LOCK for your LOCKER. (Don’t be one of those jerks that leaves your stuff in the shower to reserve it). A pre-packed bag means that when you are ready to go swimming, you are READY. You will know you have everything you need, and you can just grab it and go – this lessens the resistance! Do this.

8.Reward yourself for showing up, and for successive improvements.
This is a big deal. You want to create a good habit, right? Every time you go, reward yourself. Savor your reward. My Y has a hot tub, so I get instant gratification after a swim, followed by whatever I want to eat for dinner (um, whatever I have in my house that I want to eat. Ok, I would do that anyway, but I always consider it a reward and savor it!). Your reward can be proportional to how much you did not want to go in the first place. Reward yourself for a successful fight against being lazy and copping out.

9. Don’t expect to be perfect right away.
Nobody’s perfect. It takes a long time to get good at something. Take it a bit at a time. For a long time, I stopped mid-lap, at the deep end to catch my breath before I headed back down the pool. I don’t have to do that anymore. I learned to turn at mid-lap, but I did not start off doing that. I still usually stop after each lap, if only for a second. So what I am saying is, know that you can’t swim right, accept it, and try to get better gradually like they recommend in the video.

I have been doing this nearly 2 years now, averaging about 1 swim per week. That, combined with some exercises every night (push-ups, sit-ups, and stretches) has given me upper body and core strength I never thought I would have. I ate less and lost weight, too, and the combination of all this has made me feel a lot better and has been absolutely great for my back (though I will always have trouble with it, as I am fighting an uphill battle with ongoing scoliosis). This is one of the best things I have ever done for myself. I hope it works for you, too. Let me know how it goes, and if you have questions, ask!

Although I almost never venture beyond the confines of my abode late at night, I find some comfort in the knowledge that should I ever crave a bacon cheeseburger, a Philly steak roll up, or a heapin’ helpin’ of gyro at the midnight hour, I wouldn’t have to venture very far. For the past three and a half years, Samir Nasser, a Yemeni native, has operated the Kabob House located at 5005 Richard Arrington Blvd (a.k.a., 10th Ave N) across the street from the Holiday Inn.

The Kabob House menu is a mixture of Middle-Eastern fare and popular American dishes such as fried catfish and Buffalo wings among others. You’ll likely find that the food is not a standout among the many similar restaurants in Birmingham – although I hear the falafel is very good. What Samir has to offer is hearty food 7 days a week, and as late as 3:00 am on Friday and Saturday.

The restaurant is clean, the service prompt, and the portion sizes generous. Less adventurous souls might be a little disconcerted by the Plexiglas barrier separating patrons from those behind the counter. And the men’s restroom isn’t a beauty either. But it is unlikely that those with such delicate sensibilities ever venture into hardscrabble, blue collar neighborhoods at all, much less in search of a meal. No, depending on the time of day, you’ll likely find local workers, travelers, or young urban dwellers mixed among a few folks from the neighborhood. And even late into the night, they all find a satisfying meal.

We sat down with Libby Lassiter, a well-connected volunteer who has a passion for Woodlawn, its people and its promising future. By day, Libby works as Executive Vice President of Development and Leasing at Bayer Properties. She spends her free time among our neighbors, making the 35212 a better place to live, work, and play.

Folks, meet Libby, and hear why she’s so passionate about Woodlawn.

What is your connection to the 35212 neighborhood?

Three years ago I came to Woodlawn through the Dream Center as part of the Kids Church Saturday service team.   Becoming close to some of those children and learning about their needs led to the creation of an outreach small group called “Maintenance and Ministry on 53rd Street”, a Dream Center Adopt-a-Block ministry that focused solely on one specific block within Woodlawn.  That group has worked within the neighborhood side by side with residents to clean and maintain the 53rd Street Block, plant gardens, pray for needs, but mostly just to love and support each other in the improvement of the area.   Maintenance & Ministry on 53rd Street has helped pave the way for six other blocks being adopted, so this focus on relationships and beautifying specific blocks is growing rapidly in partnership with the community.

What kind of positive change have you witnessed in Woodlawn?

From a physical perspective, positive change is abundant with construction and renovations including the Dream Center, YWCA Interfaith and Harbor apartments, Woodrow Hall, Cornerstone/Woodlawn UMC expansion and 55th Place Arts. But more important is that positive relationships are being built.  When we first began serving in Woodlawn, the distrust and skepticism of our outreach efforts was the norm.  Now so many people are friendly, call us by name and welcome us into their homes and businesses.  Residents are feeling more comfortable coming out, visiting the Dream Center, becoming involved, and feeling ownership and pride in their neighborhood.  We are witnesses to God’s blessings on this community.

Many see the Woodlawn community as ripe for renewal. What key ingredients already exist, and what do you feel are necessary components that might still be missing?

The key ingredients are the residents of the Woodlawn community and their desire for neighborhood improvements. There is already so much momentum and focus on Woodlawn by many different Christian and civic organizations, including recent happenings such as the Redeemer Church moving to Cornerstone School and Church of the Highlands soon opening a Woodlawn campus. We have over 100 small groups working in the community but as even more residents become involved and vocal in neighborhood associations and leadership, this success will grow exponentially. The results of this unified and collective effort will be renewed pride in the Woodlawn community.

Tell us more about the Oak Ridge Park community garden. What was the catalyst for planting this project? (Pun intended.)

When we started serving in Woodlawn, it became apparent that the residents did not have the breadth of healthy food choices available for purchase in the immediate area.  So last spring starting small, we created an outreach group called Tree of Life Urban Gardens and began planting vegetable gardens in residents’ yards.  The Oakridge Park Neighborhood Association contacted us through the Woodlawn Foundation inquiring if we might do the same there.  So, in partnership with the residents, a local church and the Oakridge Park Garden Club, we are working through approvals to plant a Jones Valley style garden and hoping to be underway by this spring. Long term the goal is to create an urban market or co-op selling locally grown food which could lead to so many other positive retail opportunities, an essential component of a community-wide renewal.

Where would you like to see the 35212 (specifically, Woodlawn) community in five years?

My hope for Woodlawn revolves around the people. They want what any community desires: a clean, walk able and safe neighborhood where children can play in their yards and elderly residents will feel comfortable sitting on their front porches. I have high hopes that the Woodlawn Church of the Highlands campus can become an even greater catalyst for positive change, in partnership with other churches, local businesses, government, civic organizations and residents.

Why is the Woodlawn/Oak Ridge Park neighborhood important to Birmingham?

Woodlawn and Oak Ridge Park are an example of what can happen when the collective voices and actions of the community come together.  The City Council, media and many others are taking notice of the changes.  Ultimately, this will spread to other communities and our city will continue to be so much better because of it.