I’m in Panama City Beach visiting my parents. Today Dad I went exploring around town, looking for the tackier kitschier parts of PCB, which is actually harder than you might think given today’s high rise condos and corporatized environment of the beach today. However, if you go into Panama City proper, otherwise known as “across the bridge,” the pink flamingos and the kitsch is alive and well.

Alabama holds my roots in its dark red clay and kudzu-lined backroads, in the highways between Mobile and Tuscaloosa where I traveled to see my brother in college and in its kitchens where the women in my family told stories as they shelled peas, deveined shrimp and peeled sweet potatoes.