Photo credit: Irina Zhorov
When I was a kid, my family vacationed every summer on the Gulf of Mexico. The drive from our home in Arley, Alabama, took six or seven hours depending on traffic and how many stops we made along the way. I learned to mark our progress by certain landmarks. Downtown Birmingham rising up at the bottom of Red Mountain, the Alabama River bending past Montgomery, Bates House of Turkey, the exit for Hank Williams’s boyhood home, a sign next to a fishpond that read "Go To Church Or The Devil Will Get You!"
My favorite landmark was in Clanton — a small town in central Alabama. There on the side of the interstate stood a water tower resembling a ripe peach...