I'll issue the warning, not that I expect that many to heed it, but here goes: That "Big Thing" that you're so consumed with today is apt to look a whole lot smaller in the not too distant future.

Anybody remember Gold Plate? That was going to be a game-changer in South Baldwin not too many years ago. It was a food processing plant that was filled with promise. It had a president, board of directors and a bunch of stockholders. Only thing, it never got off the ground because of internal conflict and management problems. It got so bad the courts got involved. That pretty much sunk the USS Gold Plate.

Roughly about the same time Gold Plate was going to be processing food and making stockholders rich, Holyland, U.S.A. was coming to the Rosinton area. It was going to draw three million people a year to the thousand acre site where $10 million worth of the Good Book would be on display. Every significant Old and New Testament venue would be portrayed in this theme park, from the hundred foot statue of Christ, to the Garden of Eden, to ancient Jerusalem, to Solomon's Temple. During its peak season months hundreds of locals would be employed, presumably as Pharisees, Romans, gladiators, Babylonians, the crew of Noah's ark and so on.

Once again, it never came about. Go out to Rosinton today and you'll not find the Ten Commandments or the replica of the Coliseum that was supposed to hold 12,000 people. After all the hoopla Holyland, U.S.A. never materialized, not that we've given up on the idea of bringing the Holyland to Baldwin County. To get anywhere down here politically you have to have a little "Holyland" in you.

Along about the same time the George C. Wallace bandwagon was rolling full steam ahead. Remember that? Everybody was on board because great things were in store with GCW leading the way or blocking the door as it were. When we couldn't cheer George we cheered Lurleen because she was George. Then, in time, it proved to be no more than Gold Plate or Holyland, U.S.A. It only takes 40 or 50 years for things to be seen for what they really are; sometimes it takes a lot less.

Remember Buck Fulford? Now there was a guy who deserved to be remembered in the annals of the Great Ones. He worked alone, so there was no need to get the courts or lawyers involved.

He had a claim that made you take notice, but it wasn't a claim like that of a replica of the Coliseum in Rosinton, a claim that brought to mind the commandment, "Thou shalt not bear false witness." And he didn't get his wife to pinch hit for him when he had indigestion.

Buck Fulford's claim was that he could kill, pluck, cook and eat a chicken in one minute and 50 seconds! I remember seeing that on the side of a building in Gulf Shores when I was a kid and to this day it still seems like a bigger achievement than most.

Bob Morgan is a retired, award-winning journalist and author.