When someone recommends a place to eat I’ve never heard of before, and I make a point of checking it out and have an amazing meal, I wonder why it took me so long to discover it. This is the case with Neighbors Seafood and Chicken in the Tillman’s Corner area of Mobile.

I saw a documentary film last night at the Fairhope Public Library that terrified and inspired me at the same time. Sallie’s Ashes is the story of how the late Sallie Smith and two of her friends set off on a late-in-life crusade to try and force Alabama Power and the Environmental Protection Agency to remove and recycle 21 million tons of toxic coal ash that is sitting in an unlined retention pond on the bank of the Mobile River, only 25 miles upstream of our beloved Mobile Bay.