Coal Dust, Chocolate Gravy, and the Black Warrior River
They say the Black Warrior River divides more than just land; it divides ways of life.
My mom and dad grew up on opposite sides of that water—Dad on the east side in the Searles community near Brookwood, and Mom on the west in the Sterling community of northwest Tuscaloosa County. As the crow flies, the distance between them wasn’t much at all. But back then, if you set out by car, navigating the labyrinth of winding dirt roads turned a short distance into an all-day adventure. Growing up, traveling between those two worlds felt like crossing into entirely different countries.
The Rolling Pines vs. The Deep Cuts
Mom’s side of the river in Sterling was a landscape of rolling hills, thick pine woods, country folks, and a legendary whisper of moonshine. The trees might get clear-cut from time to time, but the earth itself remained mostly intact. There were no deep holes dug looking for coal—at least, nothing like the open pits that defined my dad’s childhood home.
Crossing over to Dad’s part of the world meant entering the kingdom of the strip pits.
Driving to my paternal grandparents’ house always felt like winding along the very edge of the Grand Canyon. The earth was scarred with deep, dizzying cuts. Right at the turnoff to their place sat an old, abandoned dragline, a massive steel giant left to rust in the weather. To my eyes as a kid, that side of the river was always dirty—but not just ordinary Alabama red mud. It was heavy with coal dust. It felt like the dirt itself was dirty.
Sterling: Dinners Outside and Chocolate Gravy
The differences didn’t stop at the property lines; they defined the kitchen tables.
At Mom’s parents’ place, my memories are anchored by massive family gatherings and dinners eaten outside in the open air. The food was classic Southern comfort, but the crown jewel of those gatherings was always the chocolate gravy. To folks from the outside, it sounds like another weird country food tradition, but poured hot over fresh biscuits, it was pure heaven.
Searles: Saucered Coffee and the Mystery of Tripe
Dinner at Papa Josh’s house on the east side was a completely different story, governed by its own rigid geography.
Papa Josh always held court at the head of the table. I can still picture him clearly today, carefully pouring a little steaming coffee from his cup into the saucer, tipping it up, and sipping it from there. The kids, of course, were relegated to our own separate table. Our menu never changed, and we loved it: Banquet fried chicken heated up in the oven, washed down with a cold glass of cherry Kool-Aid.
But if you want the real culinary lore of the Searles side, you have to listen to Mom tell it.
According to her, my grandmother regularly served up a dish that struck fear into her heart: tripe. Mom still tells stories of trying to politely chew that stuff, swearing it only grew bigger and more rubbery the more she chewed. On several occasions, Grandmother tried to hand over unopened cans of tripe for Mom to take home for Dad. Mom drew a hard line in the sand every time, telling her that if he wanted to eat tripe, he could eat it right there at his mother’s house—because she absolutely was not fixing it for him.
Instead, the tripe stayed on the east side of the river, usually sitting right alongside a big pot of dried butter beans.
Two communities separated by a ribbon of river water, miles of winding dirt roads, and two entirely different ideas of what made a family meal memorable.