Nov 24, 2023

Thanks for checking in with us. Holiday deadlines were a little earlier than usual, so make sure you keep up with real-time news at al.com. Also, I'll be taking a few extra days, but the team will take care of you. First, grab a turkey leg and read on ...

Ike Morgan

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There was a little splash on social media this week after pro wrestler-turned-actor John Cena spent his second stay in Hoover for shoulder surgery, reports AL.com's William Thornton.

Shoulder surgery on John Cena sounds pretty major. When your arms are big as Hoss Cartwright's neck, all shoulder surgery should be considered major.

The reason he was in Hoover was to get the procedure done at Andrews Sports Medicine. Dr. Jeff Dugas there specializes in shoulder, elbow and knee injuries. Dr. Dugas is also a team physician for several high schools as well as Troy University.

Cena had his first procedure on the shoulder in 2015 at Andrews.

* Insider rasslin'-reference headline

Here's the next chapter in the story of a once-popular neighborhood swim park that's turned into one of those old abandoned-places "after" photos you see on the internet.

South Roebuck Park, or East Side Park, depending on who you talk to, dates back to the 1950s. In 1963 a swimming pool was put in and it became the Eastside Swim Club. You can picture that very Americana scene during the next few decades. Young'ns spent endless summers there, future weather reporters learned to swim there, somebody once probably brought along a Baby Ruth. That whole thing into the 1990s.

Nearly 30 years old it was abandoned. Now it's an old ghost town of concession-stand ruins and a cracked, sun-bleached dry pool. Nature has about reclaimed it, and now the folks at Ruffner Mountain want to help that, reports AL.com's Greg Garrison.

The Ruffner Mountain Nature Coalition owns the 6.5-acre property, and the Birmingham City Council has agreed to a $1 million plan to turn it into a park with wheelchair-accessible trails. It's not connected to Ruffner Mountain property, but it's in the neighborhood. And when people have asked about disable-friendly places at Ruffner, well, Ruffner just hasn't had much to offer.

With this plan, funded mostly by American Rescue Plan money, Ruffner hopes to have it available by 2026.

A 30-year-old former Mobile priest who was stripped of his duties when he lit out for Europe with a recent high school graduate is now married to the woman, reports AL.com's Warren Kulo.

Alex Crow is expected to be formally removed from the clergy by the Vatican. They call that being laicized.

Back during last school year, he worked at McGill-Toolen High School. Over the summer he and a newly graduated student traveled to Europe and stayed there for around four months. During that time the Mobile County Sheriff's Office and Mobile County DA's office investigated but did not find that any crimes were being committed.

In 1939, Jim Yester of Birmingham. He was a singer and guitarist in the 60s hitmaking band The Association ("Cherish," "Along Comes Mary").

Saturday: College football, Alabama at Auburn, 2:30 p.m. on CBS.

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