Catchin' Up part 5: Homecoming

Probably the easiest stop on the tour so far has been our "homecoming" screening at the University of Alabama Huntsville.  Not only are Wonder Mill and myself based out of Huntsville, but the film has its own special connection to the school-- Louis Salmon Library, the main library on campus, doubled as Hoole Special Collections library (from the UA campus) in the film.

Hoole Special Collections ala UAH

Frankly, organizing the screening at UAH was way too easy-- not that I mind a few of these screenings just kinda conveniently working themselves out without me hustling folks, but I gotta admit one e-mail request with an immediate "can do!" response doesn't build much character.  Regardless, it was on the schedule following a couple of weeks of excessive traveling, so it was a welcome respite.

Part of the reason booking the campus was so simple was because we were able to host the screening AT Louis Salmon Library, in a room literally feet away from where we shot.  The good folks there were excited about having us back for a screening and got us one of our most fun and, frankly, comfortable venues of the tour.  But more on that later.

First, you know the drill-- the history of Huntsville, AL in three to four sardonic sentences.

Many a Fanning knew the sweat and stank of the Cotton Field.  Just not me.

I have a lot of roots in Huntsville and the outlining area-- it's where my father is from, and where the Fannings sharecropped til his generation.

Established in 1805, the city was first incorporated as Twickenham (and hence the namesake for my Adult League soccer team - the Twickenham Rovers), and first thrived from strong railroad and cotton industries, which would remain thriving into the 20th century.

One interesting note about the town's pre-20th century days is that it was actually, initially, opposed to secession in the Civil War (this is fitting, now, since the town's current culture, due to the many engineers working there from all over the country, is an eclectic mix of traditional southern culture and modern urban/non-regional identity); but the opposition didn't last very long.    

Huntsville, aside from its thriving agricultural industry, remained pretty modest in size and quiet in the national scene for most of its first century of existence, and into its second.  However, all that would change with the onset of World War II, when the city became home of Redstone Arsenal.

Redstone, which still largely influences the town's make-up and culture today, was briefly closed in '49, then re-opened as a missile research facility the following year.  The place finally became a national jewel, though, when, in 1960, Marshall Space Flight Center was opened on the Redstone campus-- and into town came a handful of German Rocket Scientists "refugees", including one Werner Von Braun-- and the city's namesake as 'The Rocket City" was born.

Just don't ask him about V2s.  Or the English.

The Saturn V, the largest rocket ever built and the means by which man reached the moon, was designed in Huntsville, and parts, including the boosters, were tested in the city.  It remains the city's crowning achievement-- the U.S. Space and Rocket Center, located in Huntsville, even has one of three actual Saturn V test rockets still in existence today on display in the heart of the city.

The Mighty Saturn V-- at the USSRC!

The space program ties and the arsenal still heavily dictate the town's culture, known for its progressive atmosphere and heavy saturation of engineering firms, engineers and other notable left-brainers.

One other tidbit worth note about Huntsville-- baseball greats Walt Weiss, Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco all played AA ball together, for a time, with the Huntsville Stars-- then a farm team of the Oakland Athletics.  Though I'm not sure there were ever pre-steroid days for Canseco, this was certainly before Big Mac had forearms like Popeye.

Looked more like Olive Oil in his Huntsville Days

Another Cliff Clavin fact I gotta mention here-- Alabama-born comic book writer Mark Waid used the town (or at least the name, though the town's presentation was not entirely congruent with how it really was at the time) in a Batman story, published by DC in Detective Comics Annual #2 in '89.  As a native and a Batman fan, I've gotta admit the story was special to me.  I spent a fair amount of my childhood battling imaginary Klan members (instead of the Joker or Two-Face) because of it.

Get them Shameful Southern Stereotypes, Bats!

Another treat to having a screening in your hometown is having some family and friends in the audience-- well, I say treat, though I couldn't shake the nerves, going into this one.  I don't get nervous at these things anymore, usually-- mostly because there's not much of an audience to get nervous about.  But I guess that was exactly the fear going into this one-- that the only folks who'd show would be folks I invited.


But, apparently, being pretty well saturated in the Huntsville community paid off, and we wound up getting a pretty big, excited, and largely unfamiliar crowd at, again, the most comfortable venue we've yet played.

We were playing in a "Super Classroom"-- and unlike "Super Star Wars", this wasn't just a shameless (though addicting and fantastic) platforming cash in on the then trendy "Super" adjective.  The room was decked out in dozens of executive-style leather computer chairs-- comfortable, executive-style leather computer chairs.  So comfortable I figured most of the crowd would be out by the time the ever-dreaded cave scene rolled around.

Super = Killing Robocop lookin' villains as Luke Skywalker; Not So Super = Seeking Missiles and no lightsaber to defend yourself 

Luckily, the crowd, all young, stayed awake (at least as far as I could tell).  It was actually one of the more excited and expressive crowds we'd played to, laughing at (generally) appropriate times, and reacting to reveals appropriately.

I was suspicious Ben, who as a rare treat got to come out to the screening, had paid 'em, at first.

Also making the screening a true "homecoming" were some friends from the day job, Ben's parents, my ever supporting parents (including the "Arkie" that's the namesake of this blog) and my wife.

A genuinely nice night-- nothing to whine about, really; just a relaxing celebration and a night of story-sharing 

My next stop, however-- the final of the semester-- was another story....