Archibald: What do you show your guests, Alabama?

This is an opinion column.

I was in Marion, Virginia for a family reunion over the weekend. My brother, a devoted Marionite, arranged a tour of The Lincoln Theatera restored 1920s cinema believed to be one of the last remaining Mayan Revival-style theaters in the world.

I had never heard of the Mayan revival, let alone seen it in person. And I’m still not sure to what extent this huge painting by Robert E. Lee qualifies as a Mayan painting or revival. But hey, I live in the south. I’ve seen his mug everywhere, from bar stools to grills to hair salons. And more than a few Bibles, unless I’m confusing him with Moses.

The theater was a fun, quirky place in this town in the shadow of Hungry Mother State Park. It got me thinking.

Just a day before, I had spoken to visitors in my hometown. They stayed in Alabama for a few days wondering what to see. I told them about barbecue in Decatur, Huntsville, and Birmingham, museums in Huntsville and Montgomery, and superficial things that sounded like a Chamber of Commerce brochure. But I could see in their eyes that they knew my heart wasn’t in it.

I wondered where a real Alabamian should take his guests.

There are really well-known tourist attractions that you shouldn’t miss. Birmingham’s Civil Rights Trail, which includes Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, Kelly Ingram Park and the Civil Rights Institute, captures a pivotal moment in Birmingham and world history. The Equal Justice Initiative’s museums and parks in Montgomery are a punch in the gut and conscience in the best possible way. The Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville is awesome, the Orion Amphitheater there is hot, hot, hot and the beaches of Alabama are like sugar.

But this stuff is too simple. What I really want to show my visitors are bizarre things. Things that may not explain who we are or why we do what we do, but that illustrate it pretty well.

I take my visitors to the tourist attraction closest to me, the volcano statue on Red Mountain in Birmingham. Certainly it says a lot about the city – how it emerged in a unique geological location with easy access to all the ingredients for steel making. But mostly because it’s weird. Let’s face it, Vulcan is a giant Roman god in the heart of the Bible Belt, but that’s not all. He’s the largest cast iron statue in the world, because cast iron is a really stupid thing to make a statue out of. And he is a blacksmith, a god of blacksmiths, naked under his apron.

I was an amateur blacksmith. I’ve built a forge or two, although I’m no god at it. But I can say without a doubt that you need to get dressed before you step into hot water. However, Vulcan’s bare butt is worth showing off.

I bring my visitors to Niki’s West not for the food, but for the experience. A wonder of the modern world, or perhaps the mid-century world, the Steam Table is arguably the most diverse and representative location in all of Alabama. And since the farmers market is right across the street, I take my guests there too.

I want them to see my city on the ceiling of the spectacular Alabama Theater, in the art of Joe Minterin the music of Sun Ra. I want you to go to Forkland where there’s a fun one old guy named Jim Bird – may he rest in peace – turned a pasture into an art gallery in a bizarre but beautiful display of love for his wife.

When people ask me what they should see in my city or state, I’m often amazed because I don’t know where to start. It depends on who they are, what mood they are in and how long they have. Decisions are difficult.

I want them to see the original mists of Dismals Canyon – they can pretend to be hobbits there, as a friend said – because there is no wild place north of the Okefenokee Swamp that has impressed me more. I want them to drive over the hills of northeast Alabama to see Lake Guntersville spread out before them with what I think is the most beautiful view in the state. I want them to climb Mount Cheaha. I want them to canoe the Cahaba. I want them to fish in one of a million still ponds early in the morning, when the mist rises from the water.

I want them to travel the Black Belt, from Selma to Demopolis and beyond, to feel the essence of Alabama, to see its beauty and feel its suffering, and to understand where we come from and where we must go. I want you to go to Greensboro Safe House Black History Museuma small house in which Dr. Martin Luther King sought refuge in the days before his assassination.

You see my problem. I can’t stop once I start.

This place is so full of history, food, music, art and sound that it is always a surprise.

There’s Fame Studios in the Shoals, where the Swampers found that funk, and that near the Alabama Music Hall of Fame. Music seems to bubble from everything in the Shoals – even though the region’s most famous local, Helen Keller, was deaf and blind. They say the Tennessee River sings a tune all its own, and that’s why a man got his name Tom Hendrix spent his life moving millions of pounds of stone to honor his Native American ancestors.

I wish I could take the world to see it.

To Rickwood Field in Birmingham and the booth at the Bright Star in Bessemer where Paul “Bear” Bryant held court.

To the American Legion in Fairhope, with its tiki hut and, as aficionado JD Crowe puts it, “the Bubble Guy, who makes bubbles the size of Volkswagens from the pier and offers amazing sunsets almost every day of the week.”

At the right time of year for the production of “To Disturb the Nightingale” in the city of Monroeville. To the nick in Birmingham, for rock & roll as it should be. To Mentone. Period. To that weird unclaimed luggage place in Scottsboro that I have to admit I’ve never set foot in before.

I am unable to tell a visitor where to go. I would recommend the Boll Weevil statue in Enterprise and Dynamite Hill in Birmingham if you can find them to understand the lengths some people go to to maintain their power and status quo.

I would tell them to drive past the Cahaba River bridge on US 280, where Klan members once gathered to plan bombings and murders – a part of the civil rights struggle that is unmarked but is just as creepy as every museum.

I would tell them Go to Decatur and eat barbecue at Big Bob Gibson’s and Whitt’s down the street and decide for yourself.

I would tell them to leave Africatownbut stopping along the way at a barbecue spot they’ve never heard of. I would advise them to stop at the Bates House of Turkey in Greenville, because where else can you find a House of Turkey – except the Alabama Statehouse, I mean.

This is a place where all of our visitors – and residents – should go. If only to understand our history and think about our future. And ask yourself why these things just have to look the same.

People ask why I love this place. It’s not because it’s perfect. I sometimes think I love it because I don’t.

John Archibald is a two-time Pulitzer winner at AL.com.