Last week, a friend of mine with whom I grew up in Morgantown, WV was passing through and decided to stop by and visit. We had both struck out from the West Virginia hills shortly after our high school graduation. I moved to West Palm Beach and he to Houston, TX. He is now a director of a company that manages hospitals nationwide and thankfully, my old friend has several hospitals to check on in Alabama now and then, and we can catch up. During our most recent conversation, he asked me the question that I have been asked numerous times over the past 10 years, “WHY Cullman, AL?” So, being the 10 year anniversary of my Jonah-esque arrival on these shores, this is how I explained to my buddy how I came here, and the world came to me.
In 2002 I was living up the road in Morgan County in a nice house that I simply could not afford after my divorce. So, deciding that I needed to make a fresh start somewhere close, but not too close to my ex-husband and his wife in Trussville (joint child custody); somewhere that I could afford to go back to school, and most importantly had an excellent school system for my children; I began to research the surrounding areas. I was surprised when Cullman came out at the top of my checklist and a little disappointed. Let’s face it, Cullman does not have the best reputation in the state in a few areas, one of those being cultural diversity. I was afraid that by putting my kindergartener into school here, she would not have the opportunity to experience the things I did having grown up in a culturally diverse university town. I am happy to say that has not been a problem. Not only was Cullman not as culturally unaware as I had anticipated, but we had many opportunities because of my occupations and friendships to host people from many different parts of the world in our home. But I am getting ahead of myself. I want to first explain my evolution into a Cullmanite.
When I first got here in 2002, I guess you could say I dove right in. I had been, at that point working from home editing and transcribing medical and legal reports, when I was approached by a friend who worked for a local pest control company about a job in their office. It was during the time that I worked there that I learned to do termite inspections and sales, thus meeting and working with builders, realtors and attorneys from all over town. This also led to working with the Cullman County Homebuilders Association and ultimately becoming their Membership Chair, which afforded me even more connection to the community. Also during this time I spent a couple of years as a sponsor of the Cullman Cyclones football cheerleaders and got to know all of the parents involved with that at the time. Cullman was quickly becoming home. My youngest daughter by this time was at West Elementary and loved it. In fact, I credit Dr. Bouldin, who was the principal there for her entire time at West (and now her high school principal) as one of the reasons we chose to stay in Cullman. He is a great educator and leader of his staff. My daughter was not only getting a great public school education, but had a wonderful male role model around, which was important to me while raising her by myself. In any case, Cullman was becoming our home, but I realized that I was losing sight of my original reason for moving here; to go to college.
So, I went back to editing medical reports at home and began attending Wallace State. In the past, I should mention here, I had over many years worked with English as a Second Language professionals, editing, translating dictation and teaching improvement of English language skills. At Wallace State I was able to get back into this side business that I really enjoyed. There was a student from Cote d’Ivoire there at that time, who, although his English was good, French, was still his first language. French is my second language, so it was just natural after we had a speech class together that I begin to translate notes and papers that he would write in French, and while attending school I began once again to do independent contract work in this field, and later giving educational lectures for both native English speakers who worked with ESL professionals (such as physicians) and wished to better understand their accents, as well as for ESL professionals who wanted to improve their presentation and comprehension of the English language. So, fast forward, I finished my degree in Diagnostic Medical Sonography at Wallace State and decided to go right back the next semester and pursue degrees in Public Safety and Health Administration at Athens State University. During this time, I continued doing independent legal and medical documentation work under my own company 3D Medical and Legal Data Compilation . This is why now, I say that the world has come to us. Since 2006, we have hosted, here, in our home in Cullman, friends from the Ivory Coast, India, Columbia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, France and Tunisia. Some for extended stays. I have tutored students in English through Skype in Tunisia and even went to stay in their home on the other side of the world in May of last year, swam in the Mediterranean and hiked the Sahara. I obviously don’t worry about my kids not being exposed to cultural diversity in Cullman. We opened our doors and the world came to us.
It was my youngest daughter who was most adamant about us staying in Cullman, but I always had kept the thought in the back of my mind that when I finished my degree at Athens, we would move somewhere else, since Cullman was supposed to be just a “stop-over” on our journey, so to speak, but just as something bigger than myself brought me to Cullman, it also kept me here. My son has a son now, who will be 2 in May, and now is fully invested in staying in Cullman to raise him. So with it being two against one, I made the decision to homestead here and bought the house I had been renting for 7 years. I signed the paperwork on Thursday, April 21, 2011, and less than one week later huddled in the hallway of that same house with my youngest daughter while an F4 tornado ripped off the siding and blew in the windows, yet spared our lives, as it completely claimed the homes around us. I have honestly never been afraid of anything, but that day, I was shown the true power of the weather and how powerless we are to stand against it. The only thing I could do was ask God to send an angel to stand over us, and He did.
It was in those next few weeks and this past year that Cullman has really become my hometown. It was the camping out together after the tornado and the subsequent rebuilding together that has grounded me to my community. The other change was that because of the 9 days I went without power and internet, I ended up losing the accounts that I had because they were with hospitals, and the work had to be done. So, I spent June and part of July simply rebuilding. I learned to plaster and paint and actually tore up my carpet and learned to lay laminate flooring from the internet. I bought more insurance. Finally, though, I went back out to work, taking a job with a local multispecialty physician management group. I have to say it turned into a great opportunity and wonderful fit for me. I love the work I do there and the people with whom I work. I have resurrected my medical and legal data compilation business and still work with ESL professionals, which I hope to never give up. I am also developing my educational lecture series. In addition to all of this I am joyfully raising a teenager and spending time with my grandson. Everything else is secondary to them. I have two adult children finding their way in the world and I hope I am being a good example.
My plan is to continue this blog with the high jinx I experience while trying to live an extraordinary life as big as the planet in a small town in Alabama! Stay tuned!
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