Rosenbush Cafe

After record breaking temperatures made August an unbearable month the rains finally came to cool down the deep south. September promises to be cooler with fall approaching but Saturday will be hot as the Alabama Crimson Tide begins its 2007 season against Westen Carolina. Rosenbush Cafe welcomes the thousands of college football fans who at this posting are partying al around the city of Tuscaloosa. Happy Labor Day and if you must drink have a designated driver. Be Safe.

Simone de bon de Bont returns to South Carolina the moment he learns Alabama Crimson Tide home opener will be a night game; 6:09 p.m. kickoff at Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa. With a new head coach in Nick Saban, expectations are high and Simone, an avid football fan, predicts Alabama will go 10-2 with the only losses to Florida State in Jacksonville, and a shocker in Starkville against SEC rival Mississippi State. Simone believes Alabama will not be taken seriously until they defeat Arkansas, Georgia, Tennesse and LSU at home and Auburn on the road. “Alabama is a true dark cat this year and will start slow but win some close games in the final minutes. Roll Tide.” Simone plans to return home for the Tennessee game - he was born in Jefferson City, TN (35 miles from Knoxville) in 1994 and has never been a Vols fan. “I hope we send the Volunteers to the Red Cross!”

Painted by A.G. Learned, circa 1930-40: One of the many artworks that once adorned the walls of Rosenbush Cafe. This leitmotif, evoking the pipe dreamer, may have been done before but it still evokes childhood memories of sitting behind the counter at Rosenbush Cafe in the early fifties. The dark-haired beauty has been featured on many other walls but my favorite location is still the main Cafe dining room.

By Henry B. Rosenbush

(The following essay on Alzheimer’s disease is part of my novel in progress, “The Cool Side of the Pillow,” chronicling my experiences with Frances, my 93-year-old mother who suffers from this illness. The dialogue and exposition contains profanity and adult themes, that while necessary to elucidate are nonetheless disturbing and often offensive, but are not presented merely as shocking but essential to the reality of Alzheimer’s disease)

As Alzheimer’s disease advances the declination of my mother’s health the inevitable memory loss, inability to comprehend even the subtlest nuances and physical deterioration become more apparent daily. Within the last two weeks she has undergone two leg angioplasties the most recent last Friday, August 17th. She has been in pain and profane and more loquacious than usual.
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Editor’s Note: This is a continuing series on adventures in the apartment rental business. The stories true and the tenants real, although names are often changed to avoid embarrassment!

As a kid, the idea of one day owning apartments seem like a cool deal but as I got older and saw what my parents had to deal with was rarely hip. Much of the changes came with the kind of tenants that have lived here since the inception of The Henry Apartments in 1952. When Bernard, my late father, decided to convert a garage into first two, then two more, apartments, it was a new concept. University students had lived in dormitories, fraternities - we even had an Animal House-style frat next door - and private residences. My father’s parents even rented his room during the Great Depression so he would have money for tuition at the University of Alabama. Dad graduated in 1932 when Paul Bear Bryant was a freshman!
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