“This is one of the things that people look at and say, ‘Somebody needs to cut all off that stuff back.’ What they really mean is somebody else. I decided instead of waiting for somebody else that this is something I can do. I started sometime last summer. It’s just doing something useful that nobody else will do. We all need to do useful things, you know? There’s one to several people who stop to talk nearly every day about how much of a difference this has made. Suddenly, the whole neighborhood is a lot nicer just because somebody wasn’t too busy to take a little time now and then to cut some stuff back and it’s sort of fun. Everyone enjoys it. All kinds of people stop and say hello. It’s so nice. It reinforces the fact that it’s useful because it makes a whole lot of people happier, and it doesn’t cost me much and it’s not such a bad thing to do. One person can make a difference, you just have to see something that needs to be done. The difference between before and after is amazing because it just looked sort of unkempt and now it looks like somebody takes care of it. Most of us are better when somebody is taking care of us.” – Dr. John Carpenter of Birmingham.

Dr. John Carpenter retired from UAB in 2013 and voluntarily prunes hedges around Highland Park. (Tamika Moore/People of Alabama)

You will often find Carpenter pruning hedges on the outside of the Highland Park Golf Course in the Highland Park neighborhood – a place where many people walk and run. Carpenter said he was a breast cancer doctor at UAB for 40 years. He retired in 2013. He hopes that people reading this are inspired to do something to make things better, no matter how small, that are good for everybody.

These are the faces and stories of people from all walks of life who call Alabama home. People of Alabama is a Red Clay Media and Alabama NewsCenter partnership.