Shuffling through a box of old photographs, I came across pictures of George C. Wallace stumping on a flatbed truck in front of Hamrick’s Drug Store in Brundidge.

Little boys were “sandwiched” between two pieces of poster paper covered with Wallace stickers and wearing circular poster paper hats banded with a “Wallace” bumper sticker.

Another picture was of Minnie Pearl, the Queen of the Grand Ole Opry, standing flatfooted on the flatbed. “Howdeeee! Me and George are just so glad to be here!”

I could hear the cheers of the throngs of folks crowded around the old truck – the men in their kaki pants, white shirts and Sunday hats. The boys in jeans and tee shirts, the girls in skirts, bobby socks and tennis shoes. The women, with pocketbooks on their arms, working those elbow fans on a hot, Alabama summer morning.

Those were the good ol’ days of politics. When colorful politicians like the Little Fightin’ Judge, Big Jim and Shorty Price came stumping around on flatbed trucks and in the “basement” of the Rock Building.

They told us what they were going to do for us. How they could “hep” us out because they were our kind of folks.

Never mind that Big Jim got “happy” on television one night and forgot the names of his children. We all have a lapse of memory every now and then.

Back then, politics was the way politics ought to be. Candidates on the stump. Candidates shaking hands and kissing babies. Candidates looking you right in the eye and saying, “I’m the best man for the job and I want your vote.”

Nobody looked me in the eye this time around. The top running candidates for governor were too busy making television commercials telling me how bad the other was. Each said the other was a crook so I had to believe that both of them are crooks so I didn’t vote for either one. I voted for Judge Roy Moore

And I didn’t, as some might say, ‘waste my vote.”

I joined about 95,000 others in putting in a plug for the Ten Commandments and all those “thou shalt nots.” That’s kind of the way I think we could run the big cities and the little hamlets of this great country of ours. We ought to put up billboards with the Big 10 on them in front of every government building and floodlight them at night so, if anybody had any doubts as to where we stand, all they would have to do is “check the boards.”

Where this election for governor will lead, nobody knows for sure right now. One man’s in the race. Another thinks he’s in and the other wants a recount.

Looks like a big stink to me. And it could get real messy before it’s over.

But what’s really adding a little ol’ timey flavor to the race is the good doctor, who vows that, if he’s elected, he won’t take a dime of money until he cleans up the place.

I’d like to see the follow through on that.

But most of all, I’d like to see the candidates standing on a flatbed truck, mopping the sweat from their brows on a hot, Alabama summer morning and telling me how they’re my kind of folks and how they’re gonna “hep” me out. That’s Alabama politics at its best. And that’s my kind of candidate.