Chewing Gum, Captain Bligh, and the McWane Center

My stepfather hated chewing gum. During his lifetime career in the Navy, serving mostly on ships like destroyer tender USS Dixie and aircraft carriers like the Randolph, he was a stickler for the strict enforcement of rules. And chewing gum was definitely not allowed aboard ship. Neither were children; thus he had little experience with youthful indulgences. My relationship with him was the same as he had with the men who served under him. He was the commanding officer; I was the swabbie. So when he barked an order, I immediately reacted with “yessir” and obedience, seldom questioning its validity or the reason behind it. Fortunately, most of the assignments he gave me were innocuous, like making him cups of black coffee which he consumed by the gallon. He seemed to have no health concerns about this or smoking cigars and pipes, but chewing gum was an abomination that he banned. Of course, this meant that I always carried a pack of it in my pocket and as I grew older, it became more difficult for him to control my chewing as it became an annoying symbol of rebellion and my principal weapon of war against authority.

While sitting at the kitchen table after dinner one evening, he made me an offer that seemed too good to be true. He said he would lift his objection to my chewing gum if I could hold a gum wrapper in my hand for two minutes. He said he would rub it between his fingers to create friction and heat in such a way that the aluminum wrapper would catch fire and disintegrate, making it impossible for me to hold it that long. I was skeptical but happily agreed to what seemed like a winning proposition.  

So I handed him a foil wrapper (replaced by paper in modern times) as I popped the offending Juicy Fruit into my mouth. He dipped his fingers in a glass of water and rubbed and folded it into a tight little package. Then he placed it on my upright palm. I smiled thinking, “I have this. I am about to be emancipated from at least one of this bully’s ridiculous rules.” But then I felt the heat on my palm steadily increasing as my discomfort rose proportionately. When the foil started turning black and red and then into grey ash, I jerked my hand away and sent it flying across the kitchen. The burn hurt like hell, but he was not sympathetic as he laughed and gloated and reminded me that I now had to give up gum. I considered substituting chewing tobacco but reasoned that he might actually approve of that as more manly, so quickly abandoned that idea.

When my hand healed, I tried the trick for myself, but no matter how vigorously I rubbed the foil, it never heated up. It was a mystery until my high school Chemistry teacher had a hysterectomy.

My heart stopped when I heard my name called over the loudspeaker in my high school homeroom classroom directing me to come to principal Walter Gunter’s office. As I entered, I was greeted by him and the superintendent of schools, Milburn Hopkins. “Oh God”, I thought. “What’s about to happen to me”? I was relieved and definitely surprised when they told me. Seems my Chemistry teacher was going to be out for six weeks to recover from surgery and they had been unable to find a substitute. Mrs. Whisnant, my teacher, recommended that they pay me to teach the class. They averted their eyes when they told me she was having a hysterectomy but there was no need as I had no idea what that was. I was, after all, only 17 but I knew a good deal when I heard one. And this sounded like a unique opportunity as my mind raced, thinking “never mind the money, I could give myself an A+ which would help my GPA as I applied to colleges.” So the deal was made, and I was to begin teaching my own Chemistry class the next day.

PENTAX Image

Our principal was not as forceful and feared as Mr. Hopkins, and he did not seem to get through to some of my overly rambunctious classmates when he told them I would be teaching the class and he expected them to give me the same courtesy and respect they had given Mrs. Whisnant. Sure. Barely fifteen minutes into the class, after Mr. Gunter left the room, I lost control as the chatter rose loudly above my squeaky, adolescent voice. My first day as a “teacher” was a disaster. At home that night as I prepared for the next day’s class, I realized I would have to devise some way to gain my classmates’  respect and hold their attention if I was to survive this experience and not be the butt of jokes for the rest of the school year; or worse, stuffed into a locker. Then I remembered the chewing gum wrapper thing.

I hated to beg, but I cut a deal with Captain America, to reveal the secret of the trick in exchange for grass-cutting and tearing down the old smokehouse he wanted removed from our property. I had wanted to just burn it down, but he insisted it be neatly dismantled in some orderly fashion. He always had some task for the swabbies that was labor intensive and would never allow me to choose an easy path to success. After I agreed and also promised I would not complain about his obnoxious cigar and pipe smoking that often forced me to leave the room in order to breathe, he went to a desk drawer and pulled out a small envelope containing a fine blue powder. He dipped two fingers into it and rubbed them together until the powder disappeared and was invisible to the casual observer. Then he added a drop of water to a piece of aluminum foil and slid it back and forth between his fingers, whereupon it promptly began disintegrating. Suddenly, it became obvious to me. The trick had been a chemical reaction. It was not friction that had produced the heat. It was simply the byproduct of adding the blue compound to the Aluminum in the presence of H2O. I could not wait to do this one in class the next day. As I had predicted and hoped, it got the boys’ attention and we were off to the races, so to speak, to find other ways to use chemicals in the lab to mesmerize the girls, if not create other mischiefs.

With unlimited access to the chemical closet, the possibilities were endless. Soon we were turning purple water clear, sort of a reverse Miracle at Cana, and even making small firecrackers, surely a violation of the fire code and a very bad idea on the whole because any crimes committed were accompanied by loud noise, traceable to the culprits. But I got my classmates’ full attention, and we would take turns writing the formulae on the blackboard that predicted the outcomes of things like turning liquids into gases and making compounds that might fuel rockets or kill the fire ants that were plentiful on our football field. The best part was the boys, in particular, settled down and we all seemed to be downright enthusiastic about showing up for one of our most difficult, required classes.

Still, I was relieved when Mrs. Whisnant returned to school fully recovered, without her hyster I assume, and I could resume my role as just an ordinary member of the class. Teaching had been perversely fun in the same way riding the roller coaster at Six flags was. I had been terrified for most of the time and wanted to kiss the ground when the thing stopped, vowing to never do that again. And I was hoping to never teach again unless the kids were no more than half my height and I could carry a taser.

But life takes strange turns and while I was serving as Special Assistant to the Superintendent of the Birmingham City Schools, I became concerned about the apparent aversion students had toward the sciences. Seemed everyone wanted to be a social worker when they grew up. But I thought what we needed just as much, especially in the minority communities,  were doctors, nurses, and scientists, in addition to social workers and rap stars.

Talking to some students at Ensley High School after an assembly, I brought up the topic. The kids were honest and forthcoming. “Science stuff” as they called it, was just too hard. And definitely no fun. I told them maybe it wasn’t being taught in a way that would be easier to understand and that when they did understand it, they could do all sorts of things that were entertaining, if not really fun. At our next administrative staff meeting at the Board offices, I brought up the subject and the kids’ reactions. I then asked if any of our administrators had ever toured a children’s museum, like the one in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts or the Exploratorium in San Francisco that was becoming world famous. No one had and when I suggested that we should try to create something similar in Birmingham, I got looks that told me it would have seemed more plausible to them had I suggested opening a classroom on the Moon. So the idea was dropped without further discussion as I slinked back to my office to do the work upon which I was supposed to be focused.   

After I was elected to the Birmingham City Council, I tried reviving the idea and got the same reception from the Mayor and Council. But while touring several facilities the City sponsored, like the Red Mountain Museum and Children’s Place on the side of Red Mountain and the Southern Museum of Flight near the Airport, I drew some obvious, but unpopular conclusions. These facilities were all mediocre at best and boring, and they all took financial resources that could be better spent. Even with the Junior League and other groups, mainly well-intentioned and charitable white women from Mountain Brook and other suburbs, the cost of what was being provided was too high and not of great benefit to children. So I proposed that all of these institutions be combined into one facility with one overhead and better administration: a kind of mini-Smithsonian Institution. In my mind I could see an airplane hanging from the ceiling, hovering above a children’s play space. Maybe not such a great idea. Even though many of the Council members agreed that a comprehensive learning center focused on the sciences might be a good idea, no one seemed to be prepared to take on the existing staff and supporters of these “sacred cow” facilities and the idea once again collapsed. All I got were blank stares when I mentioned an “interactive science center” as a means to stimulate interest in the sciences and create an important resource for the schools, as well as a potential tourist attraction for the City.

But when I was re-elected and made president of the City Council, I seized the moment. First, I asked the Council to create an Arts Commission, suggesting a list of names of people who might serve on it. I gave it a lot of devious thought as I carefully selected nominees to be voted upon. One, like Marie Stokes Jemison, a major supporter of the arts, who lived in Mt. Brook, normally a disqualification for serving on a City of Birmingham board. But she was close to Mayor Arrington and several Council members, especially Nina Miglionico and David Herring and it would be difficult for them to say no to her. So they didn’t to her or other supporters of theirs I suggested and the Birmingham Art Commission, later called the Metropolitan Arts Council, was born. Its ostensible purpose was to review and approve the placement of artwork on city properties. There had been a couple of artists who wanted to display their work on Birmingham Green, and this seemed like a perfect first task for the Commission to undertake. And it would save the politicians from the unpleasant task of telling some wanna-be deluded artists that their art was junk and would be a traffic distraction. I also wanted them to consider a One percent for Art in Civic Architecture ordinance that would require a set aside of one percent of a total construction project for the installation of public art, like sculpture and fountains. I did not think Birmingham would become Florence or Venice overnight but providing a requirement for installation of public art seemed like a good way to strike a blow against some of the City’s dreary ugliness. I imagined how the place would look with a hundred fountains dotting all parts of the city. We made a start toward that goal when the City and County cooperated to realize Cecil Robert’s dream of a fountain at Five Points South.

Another task I assigned them was to consider the creation of an interactive museum as a replacement for those that were expensive and not contributing as much as they could to the education of our children. It would be a battle, but I had already involved them in others, like the one to make the Symphony earn the money we gave them by providing concerts in the parks during the summer. I essentially forced the Alabama Symphony to agree to play in underserved neighborhoods if they wanted additional city funding to offset their annual deficit and keep musicians on the payroll. The series kicked off with a concert on the grounds at Arlington and I was delighted when they called on me to introduce the Symphony to a whole new audience. And though it was sticky hot and some mosquitoes came uninvited, everyone seemed thrilled to hear the Alabama Symphony play music many had never heard before. My heart leaped when a young Black kid told me it was the first time he had seen instruments played live, close enough for him to touch them. He was enthralled. The Commission also backed me when I insisted that the revered and pristine Birmingham Museum of Art provide free admission to school-aged children any day of the week, not just during their limited “community outreach” programs. The thought of dozens of young children from the Western part of town flooding through the halls of the museum almost gave Margaret Livingston, the board president, a stroke. But she survived and came around in her thinking when she acknowledged how much the kids loved the place, seeing beautiful things up close that they could never have imagined. The Commission also helped when the City Council appropriated money to start an African Art collection at the Museum with the purchase of a Nigerian ceremonial headdress. African art in the Birmingham Museum of Art? Wow, things were changing before my eyes.  

In a moment of dangerous enlightenment or possible insanity, I devised my best plan yet to move my dormant plan for a science center forward. I would arrange City Council junkets to see the Ontario Science Center and the San Francisco Exploratorium and send half of the Council members in different directions so they could experience and better visualize what I had been talking about. I had never known them to turn down a taxpayer-funded trip and this time was no different so off they went. The Council staff and I thought of every detail and planned for every minute of their day. In the case of the group going to Toronto, we arranged for theatre tickets one night and an elaborate meal on another before a tour of the CN tower. The San Francisco trip included a side trip to the outdoor Amphitheatre in Concord to hear one of Peter, Paul, and Mary’s last live performances as a group. Nina was totally thrilled. I should have guessed she would be a Sixties folk music fan. On the way back to San Francisco after the concert, the bus got lost in San Jose and she often complained about being on the City’s expense account and only being able to charge the City $1.89 for a hamburger and Coke from McDonald’s. I told her she could make up for it on another trip and liked teasing her by often singing Dione Warwick’s song about knowing the way to San Jose. It was always met with her shaking her head from side to side in disapproval and reminding everyone that I was a “nut”.              

Skyline of Toronto over Ontario Lake at twilight

It all worked out. When the Councilmembers returned, there was almost enthusiasm about the idea of a facility similar to the ones they had experienced. All were impressed when they saw kids who lined up to participate in science demonstrations like they were about to embark on a ride at Disneyland. After their return and positive comments, the Mayor seemed to see the momentum moving in my direction and called me to his office to offer a proposal. The City had a bond issue coming up that he wanted passed for critical infrastructure things. Of course, it was also a way to reward contributors to his campaign, like bond lawyers and salesmen and financial advisors. But most of the projects were needed and would be popular with the public. (I think Village Creek flood control was on the list.) But public votes on these issues were never a certainty as people always opposed new spending measures, no matter how worthwhile. He would need everyone pulling in the same direction for the items to pass, including me. So he said, he would put $5 million on the ballot to fund “my” science center if I would agree to support all other items he wanted. I quickly agreed. We were too close to securing the funding we needed to jump-start the project for me to sabotage it with opposition for any reason, much less mayoral politics.

All the items passed, with the Science Center item getting the fewest votes in the referendum. I joked saying it was too bad we had not had the money to send every citizen on the junkets to persuade them of the value of this project. But I would take the narrow win and maybe after the complex was completed, everyone would understand its purpose and potential like had been the case with EPIC School which had met with stiff opposition when it was first proposed.  

Armed with $ 5 million in seed money and a supportive City Council, I again approached the Junior League and other groups for support and asked my personal accountant, Sam Piazza, of Coopers and Lybrand to help by spearheading the project. Sam’s father had been in the wholesale grocery business in Tarrant City, and Sam had worked hard to get to his position as manager of the accounting firm’s local office. Through his work, he knew lots of influential and wealthy folks, including John Harbert of Harbert Construction, at that time the richest man in Alabama. I was certain we could raise the rest of the money needed to see the project to completion if we worked together on Mr. Harbert and others who would understand the project’s potential. In retrospect, he also brought something else that was needed, sober practicality. I had outlined a vision of a center built on the site of the old rusting Sloss Furnace that would be connected by a tram like those used at ski resorts to bring kids up the mountain to take a close look at the iron ore strata that were the reason Birmingham and Bessemer existed. I even imagined the recorded lecture they would get over the tram loudspeaker as it made its way to the top. I reasoned that kids would line up to ride the cars climbing up the mountain, never suspecting that they were also being tricked into learning things along the way. Sam had other ideas.

I left the Council in 1985 and had been elected to the Jefferson County Commission in 1986 when he came to my office to tell me the good and bad news. The good was that he had a fix on a likely donation of $10 million from the McWane family if the complex could be named after their family patriarch. There had been a contest in the public schools to come up with a suitable name for the proposed center and there were several creative ones that would have worked, like Discovery 2000 and Explore!. But $10 million cut that process short. The bad news was that the Sloss idea was too ambitious and far-fetched, and the planning group from the Art Commission had settled on acquiring the old Loveman’s building in downtown as the prefect site. It would help infuse traffic into a depressed area on Nineteenth Street and have more than ample existing parking in its existing garage. It was also big enough to accommodate an Omnimax Theatre. It would be cheaper to rehabilitate this building than to try and start from the ground up. Sam’s visit was actually just a courtesy. The County had no involvement in the project and my opinion no longer carried weight.

My election to the Commission changed the long-standing practice of the County not participating in projects of other jurisdictions or in municipalities. I argued that the people of Birmingham also paid County taxes and should be getting services from the County. Who had made the rule that County monies could only be spent in unincorporated areas of the County? With complete control of the County’s Roads and Transportation Division, I broke this rule by paving the parking lots at schools in Homewood and Vestavia; building the lake in front of the Birmingham Botanical Gardens and paving its lots; building the overpass pedestrian bridge across Highway 78 to protect the children crossing the dangerous highway to attend Scott School from nearby neighborhoods in Forestdale, and doing other things that the rest of the Commission resented. I used our underutilized bridge crews to also build attractive rock launch pads for canoes to access the Cahaba River. County workers loved doing this work which was more creative than the usual tasks before them and more visible to the public. Sometimes, I had to get creative to work around the norms to accomplish good things, like when Dr. Tom Corts president of Samford asked me to build a bridge across the huge drainage ditch on Lakeshore that was needed to access property Samford had been given that they wanted to develop. I told him it was illegal to do this for the benefit of a private, religious institution but would give it some thought. When I toured the site and saw that Homewood High School’s property abutted Samford’s, the problem became legally soluble and I approved the building of two bridges that still stand there today. And when the idea of City Stages was just a gleam in some dreamers’ eyes, I convinced the Commission to give the outdoor music festival its first public donation and directed the bridge crews to help construct the many stages that would be needed. I had no idea how this might turn out but it seemed like a good way to bring people to downtown Birmingham to an integrated event that attracted all sorts of music lovers. Joey Sanders, one of my administrative assistants and a first cousin of George Mcmillan’s, directed this effort and made most years of City Stages a wild success. With these and many other projects with which I helped, there was never any shortage of people willing to take the credit and I really did not mind as long as the task was completed and successful. With some, my critics were anxious to assign blame and exploit them for political gain.

On one occasion, I arrived at my office at the Courthouse to find a young Black woman waiting to see me. She did not have an appointment but I gladly met with her to hear her story. She had been accepted into an exchange program sponsored by the Institute for International Education, IEE, and was close to achieving her dream of studying abroad. But to meet the program requirements, she had to find a company or institution that would accept and sponsor a foreign student in the United States. She was clearly nervous and anxious as she asked if I would try to have the County do that. I told her I was familiar with the work of the IEE and it was a reputable organization and that the experience would be wonderful for her, but it would take some effort on my part as it did not fall into the normal realm of my responsibilities. Then I asked her a question that caused me to champion her cause. “Why are you asking me to do this?” I asked. ” You live in Chris McNair’s district. Why not ask him or Rueben Davis to advocate for the program? She was clear in her response. “Because my mother told me you would understand how important this is to me and would help me.” “Do I know your mother?” I asked. “No, but she knows you.”

So I personally paid the small registration fee and completed the paperwork agreeing to accept a foreign student for six months so she could be “exchanged” to study abroad. Weeks later, the foreign student arrived and was put to work somewhere in my division where he was paid a minimum wage and given use of an old vehicle. It had been impossible to find decent, affordable, short-term housing for him. So I said he could occupy the apartment across the hall from mine on 28th Place South that I had bought and renovated years earlier. I said I would not charge him rent because when I had lived in Sweden as a student, people had been very nice to me and I wanted to repay some of that kindness and generosity. He should use the money he saved to see as much of the United States as possible and make the most of this adventure and as wonderful an experience as he could. And he did as did the young woman who called me when she returned from her year abroad to tell me the experience had changed her life and her mother had been right.

When Gary White ran against me in the Republican Primary using the Newt Gingrich tactics of trash and burn to win no matter what the truth might be, he brought up the exchange program in one of the campaign forums. He said that I had used County money to hire young boys and even had one of them live with me. There was no ambiguity in what he was inferring and the voters got the message and some relished in it. IT did not help that I had championed giving seed money to Birmingham Aids Outreach to fund the first AIDS hospice in the community after the epidemic hit our community. I had been warned what people might say and I cared. But it did not stop me.

So when Sam said the plan would have to be altered, I did not cry. If that’s what it would have to be to make it a reality, then that’s the way the world was going to be and I’d adjust. Still, driving through the Red Mountain cut, I often imagined that tram that could have also made a stop at the Zoo and Botanical Gardens as it glided between the cut in the Mountain and Sloss Furnaces carrying kids to new heights, literally.

Years later, I was visiting my Greek cousin in Chicago and called Sam who had transferred to Cooper’s office there when he got a promotion. He had completed the planning and financing of the Science Center and had done it so well he had been in demand to chair the Symphony board and Alabama Ballet board of directors and had actively participated in a couple of other high-profile non-profit organizations. He was happy to hear from me and invited me to lunch where I thanked him for all his hard work and agreeing to take on this monumental task. He responded this way. ‘No I should be thanking you. Had you not goaded me into volunteering to head the Science Center project, I would never have held the other positions either. My volunteer work in Birmingham was a big reason why I got this promotion as head of our Chicago office.’ It came as no surprise when he eventually was named international president of Price, Waters, Coopers, the largest accounting firm in the world with clients like Coca Cola and AT&T. As I toured his impressive offices in New York, I could not help but think that this was a good example of a Birmingham boy who made good because he did good. Recently, he was named chairman of the board of Warners Discovery.

When it came time for the opening of the McWane Center, I was not surprised, but a little hurt when I did not receive an invitation to the event. But I heard from others who did that every social climber from Mt. Brook was there to take credit for this impressive complex. Mike Calvert, director of Operation New Birmingham was giving a tour of the downtown area to some out-of-town visitors when he responded to one of their questions about how they could get such a complex in their city. He gave them my phone number, telling them I was responsible for the idea and its implementation. So clearly some remembered my seminal role in the project. Years later, I was still complaining to Dr. Arrington that it would always be a disappointment that I had not been invited to even tour the complex after it was completed. Of all the projects on which I had worked; EPIC School, the new School of Fine Arts, and others, this one had taken a huge toll and required much of my time. I wasn’t looking for a statue or even a plaque but thought a simple thank you was in order. He agreed and nodded as I said he would probably not receive credit for all the good things he had done for the City when he was out of office.

After the newness of McWane Center wore off, I bought a ticket and gave myself a tour. The complex was impressive and exciting. The planning group had done a good job and it was thrilling to see kids watching their hair stand on end from static electricity they generated or gasping with excitement at the trip they took around the Galaxy and our world in the Omnimax theatre.  There were kids of all ages everywhere, loud and boisterous, and unrestrained as they leapt from one interactive exhibit to another, learning the scientific principles behind each experiment or demonstration. Surely someone, maybe just one of them,  was going to be inspired or at least feel like science was not their enemy; might one day save the planet; and could actually be really fun. I mused that if that happened, it would have all been worth the effort, with or without a thank you note or deserved credit.

As I wandered around by myself absorbed in memories of how an impossible dream had been born and had actually come true because of persistence, hard work, and help from others who shared that dream, I looked everywhere, including in the souvenir shop, but they said they did not sell chewing gum on the premises. I could not help but think that Captain Bligh would have been proud and happy, despite my mutiny. I took satisfaction in the fact that another task had been completed and no one had gotten burned.

Like with many of my posts, I mention real people and their real names so that what I claim in them can be verified by independent sources.