Long before Wayne began writing a weekly travel column, Georgia was a favorite destination because it was so full of history, art and interesting landscapes. By the time he became a travel writer after his retirement as a professor at the University of Missouri, our youngest daughter had a medical practice just across the border from Georgia in Chattanooga and we could easily indulge in visits to the richness of attractions both in Georgia and Alabama.
Whether you are seeking a new travel adventure, enjoy immersing yourself in history with a light touch, or are just looking for a good tale, the Andersons' current Venture Bound book, Georgia & Alabama; Travel Highlights, will delight you. This lively anthology focusing on historical, artistic and scientific attractions is a useful guide.
Sometimes stories are a bit quirky such as watching a Zoo Atlanta trainer, behind a wire barrier, using hand signals to inspect the health of a gorilla's mouth, ears and limbs; or in Fairhope, Ala., answering the call of "jubilee" to rush to where the tide is rising to scoop up crabs, shrimp, and flounder by the bucketful; or learning in a Savannah, Ga., museum that after World War II Germany's Luftwaffe Field Marshal Hermann Goering said that when he saw the bombers coming "with fighter escorts over Berlin--I knew the jig was up"; or view the remarkable sculptures carved into dying cedar trees in Oak Park in Montevallo, Ala.
After retiring as a professor emeritus in psychology from the University of Missouri, Wayne P. Anderson, PhD, began writing a weekly travel column, Venture Bound, for the Columbia Daily Tribune in 1998 about his national and international adventures.
His wife of 63 years, Carla Lee Anderson, PhD, a retired psychologist, has usually traveled with him, sometimes as a co-writer but always as an editor--that she was was formerly an English teacher also helped a lot!
Excerpt
Montgomery
Rosa Parks Library and Museum
The Rosa Parks Library and Museum stands on the site where a black seamstress was arrested for committing an act of civil disobedience by firmly refusing to give up her bus seat to a white male in 1955 Montgomery, Ala.
An important event in the civil rights movement, Rosa Parks' act triggered a bus boycott that lasted 381 days as well as a 1965 U.S. Supreme Court decision that segregation of bus service was unconstitutional.
The museum has two sections with separate admissions. The first has one of the most novel approaches of immersing visitors in history that we've seen. We walked into a darkened room and joined a robot driver sitting in a bus, a vehicle meant to represent a time machine. Screens surrounding the bus showed with almost 3-D clarity films of major events in the history of segregation in America. Our trip started in 1954, just before Rosa Parks was arrested, and the bus, with appropriate simulated bouncing, took us back in time to some critical moments involving historical figures such as Dred Scott, Harriet Tubman and Homer Plessy. We even spent a little time in the Civil War.
Exhibits on the second floor gave us a week-by-week history of the bus boycott and an introduction to many of the others involved in the fight for civil rights, including Martin Luther King Jr., who was a prominent leader and the spokesman for the boycott.
Next, we used a separate entrance for the second section of the museum, which was more specifically focused on the Rosa Parks story. This turned out to be an even more innovative presentation. We sat in a small room with three screens on the upper wall showing people talking about the effect the bus segregation had on them and problems they had with the bus drivers. We could feel how insulted and humiliated they were by the process and how the 14th Amendment guaranteeing equal treatment was being violated.
When the back doors of the room opened, we were in the presence of another bus and amazing technology. We could see and hear the people on the bus through the windows; blacks in back, whites in front. The bus stopped, and an image of Rosa Parks got on, and we saw the situation develop that led to her arrest. The police were called and we watched her being taken into custody.
In the next room, we learned how she was treated at the police station (badly) and how word spread through the black community and a boycott of the bus system was called. Moving through the rooms, we followed the development of the boycott. Blacks had been the main users of the bus service, and their walking and taking other ways to get to work were breaking the bus business. The churches arranged station wagons for transportation; one display shows a station wagon with two passengers inside and two getting ready to board.
The bus company filed a suit against the alternate self-help system of getting people to work. We were led through the legal processes involved. Eventually the Supreme Court ruled bus segregation was illegal, and blacks went back to riding.
The bus boycott is seen as the real beginning of the civil rights movement, but it was still years before other methods of segregation were overcome.
Rosa Parks moved to Detroit because it was dangerous for her to stay in Montgomery. She eventually became an aide to a congressman and was awarded the Medal of Freedom — the highest award given to a U.S. civilian — and 43 honorary doctorates.
Professional Reviews
Columbia Tribune
Venture Bound columnists Wayne and Carla Anderson are well-practiced travelers who love to bring their readers along for the ride. Their discerning eyes and attention to detail add a dimension to this compilation that takes it beyond a routine travelogue. Who would have imagined the Peach State could boast so many hidden gems? Jim Robertson, Managing Editor, Columbia Daily Tribune
Osher Lifelong Learning
Wayne and Carla Anderson's book brought back memories of traveling in Georgia when we lived there in the late 60's and about places in Georgia and Alabama we have seen more recently. Their well researched descriptions provide information to anyone who wants to learn about the rich history of this region of the U.S. and its abundance of interesting sites to visit. I especially enjoyed the introductory section, How We Travel, with advice that even the most experienced tourist can find useful.
Helen Washburn, Ph.D. Chair Osher Lifelong Learning, Columbia, Missouri, Former President Cottey College, Nevada, Missouri
Searching out interesting places
I hadn’t realized how many interesting spots there are in Georgia and Alabama, spots like a leading museum of Western (Wild West) Art or a Space and Rocket Center. Wayne and Carla Anderson have found these and many other places, provided some background as to why they are there, and described them so well that I’d like to visit them, well, most of them.
David Leuthold, Ph.D. Professor Emeritus, Political Science, University of Missouri-Columbia
