Enterprise, Alabama. David was here.

de.com.mis.sion—withdraw something (especially weapons or military equipment).

“I guess I thought you’d be here forever

Another illusion I chose to create

You don’t know what ya got until it’s gone

And I found out a little too late.”   Hard Habit to Break, Chicago

My wife and I made a quick trip this weekend to my hometown of Enterprise, Alabama.  We had official family business there, but we took time to just drive around and reminisce together. My wife is from Jasper, Alabama, but since we’ve been married nearly forty two years, she shares much of my Enterprise history.  After graduating from the Enterprise State Junior College in 1973, I made my way to Birmingham to continue my college education at Samford University. That is where I met my wife the next year. We shared a ride from school to Jasper every weekend.  We fell in love somewhere along Highway 78 between Birmingham and Jasper.

We drove down Main Street of Enterprise a couple of times and stopped for a photo op at the famous Boll Weevil Monument.  That monument, erected to thank the boll weevil for destroying  cotton and forcing local farmers into growing peanuts, will turn 100 years old next year. I plan to be at that celebration.  I have written several local leaders that it would be good and appropriate for the monument to also memorialize Dr. George  Washington Carver who influenced those farmers.  But so far that recommendation has fallen on deaf ears.  Meanwhile, I'm still proud of the history and heritage of that storied monument which stands right in the middle of town at the intersection of Main and College Streets.

From the monument, we drove down College, left on Doster, right on Crawford and left on Glenn Street. On the right is 102 Glenn Street, the home of my childhood, adolescence and young adulthood. I was nineteen years old when I hugged my sister, mother and father, and drove away to Birmingham in the Olds 88 my grandfather gave me. There was probably a voice telling me “Pay attention. You will never live here again.” But I was listening to other voices coaxing me toward my destiny.  From my childhood home, we drove down the street to the home of my high school girlfriend. One irony of that visit and that “girl” is that over the years, she and my wife have gotten to be good friends. She and I are still good friends too.  It was good to see where we spent so much time together with her family.

Driving back up College to drive across town to the former location of my high school, I noticed a plaque  in front of the College Street Elementary School where I was a student grades one through six. I pulled over to read it.  The plaque stated some of the school's history and that the school had been “decommissioned” in 2015.  Maybe it’s called that because of the proximity of Enterprise to Ft. Rucker, an army base, but apparently “decommissioned” is a fancy word for “closed.” I learned that a  local woman, Peggy Collins, also an alumnus, was upset about the closing. She started the process to add the school to  the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage.  That process was completed in 2016. There is now an effort to turn my old school into a museum.

The drive across town takes only about ten minutes. We drove by the hospital where I was born. Across town we stopped, where I often stop, at the memorial where my high school, the Enterprise High School, stood until  March 1, 2007.  On that fateful day, a F4 tornado tore through town causing incredible devastation.  My school took a direct hit. Eight students and a resident were killed.  In 2010 the city erected a permanent memorial to those students and the woman who was killed.  As I looked at the photographs etched in bronze and read each memorial, I cried as I always do. They were each so young and so beautiful. I can’t image the loss to their families, friends, school and community. So much life and energy just vanished in a matter of seconds. Although on this site of my high school is an elementary school and although Enterprise has a $90 million dollar high school across town, I also shed a tear for my old school building. From grades nine to twelve, there I grew from an adolescent to a young adult. It’s just so odd that not a brick of that school still stands.

Something else that’s odd, is that when we visit Enterprise, Alabama, we stay in the Hampton Inn. I’m always tempted to tell the desk clerk the story of my life. “Do you want to know who I am?” “Do you want to know what this town means to me?”  “Does this town mean anything to you?” Instead, I hand her my credit card, smile and say “Thank you”, and walk to my room.

College Street Elementary School was decommissioned by an official act. The Enterprise High School was decommissioned by an “act of God.”  I put it in quotes because that’s what the insurance company called it.  I seriously doubt God had anything to do with the violent destruction of a high school and the tragic loss of life.  Why would a loving God do that?

Yesterday, as we put Enterprise in our rear-view mirror and drove north on Highway 167 toward Troy,  I felt very melancholy. But that girl I met because I left Enterprise in 1973 in my grandfather's Oldsmobile, was sitting beside me in the car. We were commissioned in 1976.  Nothing that has been  decommissioned can begin to match that.  Chicago says, “You don’t know what ya got until it’s gone.”  I know what I’ve got. “Let’s go home”.