Southside

Many years ago, Mr. Billingsley, an older gentleman, and my grandfather J.S. Miller were having a heated dispute in the community of Southside—a small, once-quiet town in Etowah County, Alabama. Amidst these family fights, we often heard an old saying: “Don’t worry if things keep going the way they are—town will come to you.” Back then, Southside was a place where time seemed to pause, and my family stood at the heart of its identity. But as Scripture reminds us, “To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven” (Ecclesiastes 3:1). Now, at 60 years old, I find myself wrestling with time’s passage, trying to reconcile what once was with what is.

The old Southside High School, where so many of my formative memories were forged, is now just a parking lot across from Smoke Neck Farm and Garden/General Store. What replaced it—a building once known as the Fuhrman Building, named after my father—no longer bears his name. That removal, made by the powers in Southside, feels like more than an administrative decision. It feels like erasure. There’s a plaque still inside, but it’s a small consolation. Does it bother me? Not as much as you might think. Nor would it have bothered my father. As Ecclesiastes 9:5 declares, “For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten.” Earthly honors fade, but legacy is not etched in stone or signs—it’s written on hearts.

This isn’t meant to be a bitter essay. It’s a reflection—a lament, perhaps, in the spirit of the psalmist who cried, “When I remember these things, I pour out my soul in me: for I had gone with the multitude… with the voice of joy and praise” (Psalm 42:4). For just a moment recently, stepping out of my truck, I saw the Southside of my youth. Not the parking lot it’s become, but the bustling high school yard where we built homecoming floats, where kids darted across the street to the Panther Pit, and where monkey bars stood like monuments to our younger selves.

Now, the junior high occupies that space, the football field repurposed, and a fireworks stand marks what was once sacred ground to me. The old Cedar Bend Lodge still stands, but its purpose is murky, like so much else in this new version of town. Still, my memories remain sharp—the football field where I trained, the ticket booth my brother’s class built, and the building whose exterior once bore my father’s name.

That name’s removal stings. My cousin, Barney Hood, who lived to 100 and coached Southside football in the 1940s and ‘50s, still has a field named after him—a lasting honor. Yet in 2004, my father’s name was stripped from the Fuhrman Building, the same year I chose to run for mayor—against my mother’s nephew. That act upset the long-standing political order of Etowah County. Retribution followed swiftly, and 2005 became a year of trials—legal, emotional, and financial. The same leaders who promised community unity worked to fracture it, and my family bore the brunt. “A man’s foes shall be they of his own household” (Matthew 10:36), and I learned this the hard way.

My father passed in February 2006. A dear friend of mine, a Birmingham nephrologist, had warned back in 1994 that diabetes might give him only fifteen more years. That prognosis proved grimly precise. I can’t shake the feeling that the stress of our political battle helped hasten his passing. “Hope deferred maketh the heart sick” (Proverbs 13:12), and his heart, already weakened by illness, couldn’t take much more.

I confess—if I had known the cost, I wouldn’t have run. “Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding” (Proverbs 4:7). I lacked that wisdom in 2004. My father told me then, “Your cousin is a shark; he’ll strike from below.” He was right. And though their attacks landed hard, they weigh on their souls, not mine. “Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord” (Romans 12:19). I’ve forgiven—but I haven’t forgotten.

Today, I sat in what’s now a bar and restaurant, once just a gas station, eating a Philly cheesesteak. I looked around and couldn’t believe how much Southside has changed. From a quiet farming town of 1,200 to a bustling suburb of nearly 10,000, the prophecy of my Uncle Pete former Mayor Southside and others came true—“town” did come to us. But I don’t like what it brought. “What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” (Mark 8:36). This isn’t progress—it’s proliferation. It’s not community—it’s congestion.

Yet I’m not against change. I welcome progress that heals the sick, lifts the poor, and expands the mind. But this—this suburban sprawl—isn’t that. And I wonder, futilely, if I could’ve done more to preserve what we once had. Maybe not. As Job 14:5 says, “Man’s days are determined; you have decreed the number of his months and have set limits he cannot exceed.”

What I do have are my memories. And as long as breath fills my lungs, they are mine to carry. The echoes of homecoming floats, the sound of cleats on grass, the laughter across monkey bars—they’re etched in my soul. “The memory of the just is blessed” (Proverbs 10:7), and that’s enough for me. Southside may have changed, but in my heart, it’s still home.