WHO IN THE WORLD IS JOE WHEELER?

October 22, 2011  Dateline: Joe Wheeler State Park, AL USA

Everyone knows about Nashville, TN being a Music City with all of its recording studios and Detroit with its Motown sound.  In Alabama there is Muscle Shoals with its Fame Music Recording and Cypress Moon Studios.  Many famous recording artists worked at these studios including Wilson Picket, Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, Little Richard, the Osmonds, Joan Baez, Jimmy Buffet as well as many others.  The Muscle Shoals Sound Studio Museum was established in 1969 by a group of session musicians known as the “Swampers”.  The museum is located in a building where the Roling Stones, Cher, Bob Seger, Rod Stewart, Paul Simon Art Garfunkel and many others created some of the most popular music of the 1970s.

The town of Muscle Shoals got its name from the rapids and shoals that were in the Tennessee River before the TVA dammed the river.  There were river mussels that grew in the area and the Indians would farm them, but it took strong arm muscles to paddle through the rapids.

Who could be a general in two armies that once opposed each other?  That would be Joe Wheeler.  Lt. General Joe Wheeler served in the Confederate Army and fought at the battle of Shiloh.  Following the War Between the States he was a Brigadier General in the Unites States Army.  He also served in the House of Representatives.  In honor of his service to our nation, a lock on the Tennessee River and a Tennessee State Park were named after him.

The Joe Wheeler State Park has a large lodge with meeting rooms and banquet facilities.  Today there was an outside wedding at the facility.  Tomorrow the AGLCA semi-annual rendezvous starts at the facility. There will be approximately 75 boats at the facility with Loopers from Ontario and Quebec, Canada, Florida, South Carolina, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, South Dakota and many other states, including me from New Jersey  The Park’s setting is beautiful and the mornings are crystal clear.

The Loopers who were at the park today were all invited to meet at an outside gazebo for a typical 5 o’clock cocktail party. Everybody brings their own drinks and a food item to be shared by all. About 40 Loopers showed up. The party ended when the lights came on and the bugs arrived. A good time is always had by all.