The 82nd Annual Meeting of the Birmingham Historical Society featured an array of ‘Fruity Wonders‘ cakes from participants as young as 14, as well as entries by four different members of the same family who love to bake. Yum! Thank you to all who participated. Winners in multiple categories were announced at the meeting.
Always a popular annual event, this year’s entries included one cake which gave a nod to the speaker’s topic on Ancient Life in Alabama and was crawling with dinosaurs instead of fruit. The young baker explained that the dinosaurs were eating the fruit layer because it came into being during the age of dinosaurs! A special thanks to Trustee Carolanne Roberts who organized this event.
Did you know that Alabama has a state fossil? (Although it looks like a dinosaur to the untrained eye, it’s a whale/mammal and dinosaurs are reptiles.) It was famously immortalized in Herman Melville’s, “Moby Dick” in 1851.
“But by far the most wonderful of all Cetacen relics was the almost complete vast skeleton of an extinct monster, found in the year 1842, on the plantation of Judge Creagh, in Alabama.
The Alabama doctors declared it a huge reptile…but some specimen bones of it being taken across the sea to Owen, the English Anatomist, it turned out that this alleged reptile was a whale, though of a departed species…”
A replica of the Eocen whale is currently suspended at the Alabama Museum of Natural History in Tuscaloosa, as presented by aquatic biologist and amateur paleontologist, Dr. William Deutsch, at Monday night’s packed 82nd annual meeting of the Birmingham Historical Society.
Photo by Louise McPhillipsPhoto by Louise McPhillipsPhoto by Louise McPhillips
His talk showed how and why Alabama is rich in fossils with “the highest fossil diversity of any state east of the Mississippi River”. He acknowledges the contributions of the many who’ve unearthed its history. And he tells why an understanding of our ‘deep time’ is important today.
Deutsch illustrated his talk, “A Walk Through Deep Time: 500 Million Years of Alabama History,” with a rope curled and stretched across the large auditorium to replicate time since the Big Bang. The indiscernible, minute, end point of the rope represented our modern times, causing him to end the presentation with a theological thought he ponders often on the age of the fossils he studies.
“The next time you see a fossil along a creek, roadside, or on display, stop ponder, and preferably hold it in your hand. The lowly fossil speaks a clear nonverbal message:
I am real. I am very old. I lived long before you–long before your species. If you allow, I will guide you to think deeply about time, life, death, and meaning. It’s in your hands. “
Here is a concrete example of how the Birmingham Historical Society contributes to the quality of life in Birmingham based on the goals listed below. Trustee Birgit Kibelka and Director Marjorie White worked with the City of Hoover planning team to include historic sites in their comprehensive Park & Public Spaces Plan 2023, bringing multiple sites to their attention with well-documented research, part of which was used on pages 44-47 of the Master Plan. (For the entire Parks Public Spaces + Recreation Plan, see the link below) Thank you Birgit & Marjorie for your dedication and input!
Please join us on Monday, February 26 at 7 p.m. in the Auditorium of the Birmingham Botanical Gardens for the 82nd Annual Meeting of the Birmingham Historical Society. President Wayne Hester will preside.
Recorded history is said to have begun with the drafting of the Sumerian cuneiform tablets, approximately 5,000 years ago. Beginning in the 19th century, the study of fossils has evolved to tell a significantly longer span of earth’s history: 500 million years, i.e. “Deep Time.” Per our speaker Bill Deutsch: “Alabama has been part of this unfolding story since the modern science of Paleontology began, and fossil richness will keep it center stage.”
Deutsch will take us on a mesmerizing“Walk Through Deep Time”, unfurling Alabama’s rich fossil legacy and its connections to our history, geology, and world-class biodiversity. (Add to your FB calendar HERE)
Following Dr. Deutsch’s talk, Carolanne Roberts will announce the winners of the Fruity Wonders Cake Competition, praising our members’ creations and sharing comments from our esteemed judges.
Then, we invite you to get a copy of Ancient Life in Alabama, to chat with Bill Deutsch, sample cake, and pay 2024 Society dues. Copies of Deutsch’s book will be available for sale for $30 cash, check, or charge.
About the Author
Dr. William (“Bill”) Deutsch is a Research Fellow Emeritus in the Auburn University School of Fisheries, Agriculture, and Aquatic Sciences. The New York native holds degrees in Biology, Anthropology and Zoology, and Aquatic Ecology, the later a PhD from Auburn. During his 26 years as an aquatic ecologist in Alabama, With a longstanding interest in fossils, Deutsch participated in fossils hunting expeditions across the nation He has taught, lectured, and written widely about the natural wonders of our state, especially its rivers and its fossilsand what they can tell us about the present and times long past.
“Since moving to Alabama nearly 40 years ago, I’ve learned about its rich variety of fossils. Rock outcrops are fanned out in a relatively discernible pattern, with bands of fossils representing each geological era. The story of more than 500 million years of life is here, just under our feet. Tropical seas teemed with sharks, mosasaurs, and reef life. Coal-forming swamps ringed coastlines with huge dragonflies and millipedes, slithering amphibians, and towering horsetail plants. Dinosaurs of several types were here along with toothed birds, legged whales, rhinoceroses, mastodons, and giant sloths—the highest fossil diversity of any state east of the Mississippi River! In Alabama? Who knew? How and when did this happen?”
–-Bill Deutsch, “Preface,” Ancient Life in Alabama : The Fossils, The Finders & Why It Matters, July 2022.
“Fruit came with the flowering plants in the Mesozoic age [145 to 66 million years ago]. Late dinosaurs probably imbibed.” Bill Deutsch.
THE RULES: Bake your cake and bring the form and your cake for judging to the Birmingham Botanical Gardens Auditorium between 3:30 and 4:00 p.m. on February 26.
JUDGING CATEGORIES: Most Colorful + Best Creative Use of Fruit + Best Visual Presentation +Best Flavor Profiles + Best Memory Statement + Best Overall
You’re invited to join BHS Trustee, Barbara Shores, on February 8th at 7:00PM as Alabama Public Television shares the story of her father, Arthur Shores, who served an instrumental part in Birmingham’s civil rights history.
From left: Autherine Lucy, Thurgood Marshall, and Arthur Shores exit the federal courthouse in Birmingham, Alabama, in February 1956, following Lucy’s reinstatement as the first black person to be admitted to the University of Alabama. Photo courtesy of The Birmingham News
The premier screening will be one of the first events at the newly renovated historic Carver Theater, which also houses the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame. For a full list of events, please click HERE.
Tickets for the movie screening are FREE but for guaranteed entry, please register HERE and pick up tickets at the theater’s box office Wednesday to Friday from 11AM to 2PM
The annual Birmingham Historical Society meeting next year will be February 26th, 2024, at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens. As always, it will include a popular cake contest (and tasting!) after the featured speaker. Judges select multiple winners with 2024 categories listed below. Memorable family recipes are always a big hit with the judges! The meeting is FREE and open to the public. So start thinking of your best recipes that are filled with fruit! Need inspiration? Lots of ideas below…
Birmingham Historical Society 