WHAT have you finished reading recently? I listened to an Audible reading of A Christmas Carol (Tim Curry, very strange) and finished a version of The Screwtape Letters that’s oriented toward women.

WHAT are you reading now? The Bookshop of Memories and The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife.

WHAT are you reading next? Not sure. I’m finally done with The Big Project for my class this semester, so now I can focus on serious reads, but the question is do I want to do serious reads.

Today’s prompt from Long and Short Reviews is, “Myths and Legends from Your Area”.

A few things come to mind! My city’s founder, William Rufus King, is buried in the Selma cemetary, Old Live Oak: there’s a story that he was repeatedly unburied and reburied between Cahawba and Selma (Cahawba being the state capital and the county seat, but losing those honors in turn to Montgomery and Selma), and is so unsettled despite resting comfortably in Old Live Oak cemetery that he will attack those who run around his crypt chanting his name, or who try to spend the night in his crypt. This used to be a thing with the high school kids, spending the night in his crypt. Eventually the city sealed the door, though. Spoilsports! Another local ghost story involves a Selma banker, John Parkman, who made some poor investment decisions after the War — and did it with federal money, during a military occupation. He was imprisoned and made his escape, but died in the process. Stories split on how he died: some say he was shot by the Yankees, others that he drowned trying to swim the Cahaba river to safety. Regardless, his spirit — myth has it — found his way home, where he began haunting the place that is now Sturdivant Hall, an art museum. According to the stories, there are certain areas of the property and the house that the servants began avoiding because it felt ominous and they kept seeing Old Master Parkman there. This story was included in Thirteen Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey. More seriously, there’s a myth that on “Bloody Sunday”, Civil Rights marchers were attacked trying to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge: that’s an outright falsehood, and easy to demonstrate by looking this photo of a peaceful march across the bridge, followed by this photo of marchers being attacked hundreds of yards away from the bridge. The confusion appears to have followed in the wake of bridge crossing ‘reenactments’ from 1985 on, in which participants cross the bridge and then turn around again. The focus on the bridge has made it a symbol of the Civil Rights movement: thousands of tourists show up each year to walk across the bridge, snap a selfie, and then leave — ignoring sites like the Courthouse where actual events happened.

Well, I’ll get off my soapbox now.