"Author Wade Hall, the first of his family to graduate from high school, is a native of Bullock County. In the 1970s and early 1980s, during visits back to his home county, he recorded the memories of some of the county's oldest inhabitants, including the nineteen people who now speak from these pages. What they shared were recollections of a culturally and technologically isolated time - in which life was hard but honest and people persevered with stoicism and a simple, unfettered religious faith."--Jacket.

ALABAMA RIVERS, A CELEBRATION AND CHALLENGE invites you to travel down rivers and through time to encounter the rich human history and natural wonders that have defined Alabama. Along the way, you will celebrate an array of magnificent rivers filled with unique plants and animals, shaped over the ages by a remarkably diverse geology. You will appreciate how rivers have served people from the first Paleo-Indian settlements to the present. Accept the challenge to restore and protect our rivers for their economic, cultural, and ecological benefits, but most of all because it is the right thing to do.

Although he was a native of Bullock County, Alabama, Wade Hall -- teacher, writer, poet, critic, interviewer, folklorist, and documentarian -- spent most of his fifty-year career in Kentucky. But he was never emotionally far from his home as evidenced by his passion for collecting vintage Alabama postcards. In his lifetime he amassed 10,000, which he then graciously gave to the University of Alabama Libraries and Troy University in a large joint bequest that also included rare books, quilts, folk art, letters and more. These postcards date from the late 1800s to the mid-20th century and offer a fascinating and diverse picture of the state. The meaning of postcards that could be purchased as a travel souvenir is largely forgotten today when cameras are commonplace. But the value of Hall's stunning collection cannot be missed. The some 400 cards featured in Greetings from Alabama are revealing of scenes familiar and rare. From Birmingham's Vulcan to Mobile's Bellingrath Gardens, from Enterprise's boll weevil monument to Huntsville's rockets, from Helen Keller's home to William Rufus King's resting place, the scenes offer captivating glimpses of Alabama history.