We returned to an abandoned chicken house in Macon County on Saturday night to get down and dirty with old friends from back home. OK, I didn't get down too much because I was the designated driver, but we had a great time. Glad guitar prodigy Lance Price was able to make it down to join Gravel Road for a few songs, too. I'll probably write more about the experience in Sunday's newspaper because that red dirt from back home sure sticks with you for a while. Thank goodness. This just might become an annual thing.
Pictured below are the entertaining R&B act Hillmon (including the bass barrel drummer) and Southern rockers Gravel Road.
1. When I showed up Tuesday at the park with my kayak, the superintendent looked at me as if I'd arrived with a spaceship. This leads me to believe it's not a hot spot among kayakers, which means loner kayakers like me can find some peace and quiet. Actually, I was the only person in any type of boat this day. Sweet.
2. I know the place. I grew up camping and fishing out there. My grandmother went to church there. I played on the playgrounds there as a kid. Even smooched with a few girls out there without any charges being pressed (as far as I know). I like exploring new places in my kayak, but there's something to be said for familiar territory, too. It's all about balance.
3. As the sign shown above at the boat ramp indicates, you're not gonna be bothered by personal watercraft and speeding boats. Nothing wrong with those. If I strike it rich, I'll have me a lake house somewhere with some of my own. But naturally beautiful and peaceful spots like this should be reasonably undisturbed. There are places to cut up and places to chill out and places to do both. If only everyone could tell them apart.
4. Because you don't have to worry about speeding watercraft, you can assume a more relaxed paddling approach, as evidenced by the photo below. You can even carry cell phones and digital cameras with you.
5. When you get through kayaking, you can eat at some of the best restaurants in Georgia in a 30-mile radius ... Troy's Snack Shack and Yoder's Deutsch Haus in Montezuma; Oglethorpe Barbecue Co. in Guess Where; The Pizza Place in Ellaville; Justin's Place in Butler; and The Station, Forsyth Bar & Grill, Pat's Place and Monroe's in Americus to name a few. Not to mention there's no better (or cheaper) way to fuel yourself for an excursion on the water than with a morning stop at Grover's Grits where their motto is stated on the sign outside: "Order what you want; eat what you get."
This just in from the Mennonite News column by Esther Yoder in my hometown newspaper, the Citizen and Georgian of Montezuma. The alarming second paragraph:
Brady Yoder got a piece of meat stuck in his throat last Friday. It wasn’t choking him, but he just couldn’t swallow anything else either to make it go on down. After several hours, they took him to the hospital in Warner Robins to have it surgically removed. The same thing had happened one other time several years ago and he had it taken care of in Warner Robins also. He is doing fine now.
I think we can learn two things from this incident: 1. Brady Yoder needs to chew his meat a little better, and 2. If you ever have meat stuck in your throat, get to Warner Robins as soon as possible.
As a guy who's kayaked and canoed the Flint River more than once and as a guy who grew up on the banks of it, I have a great appreciation for those who've helped protect that beautiful, natural river that flows freely until it hits the dam at Lake Blackshear. When President Carter was governor, he prevented a plan to dam the the river near Sprewell Bluff, which is among the most beautiful natural sites in Georgia.
President Carter will be appearing in my hometown of Oglethorpe on Friday, June 27 for a celebration to mark the end of Paddle Georgia 2008, which will take 325 adventurers on a week-long, 95-mile kayak/canoe voyage down the Flint River from Woodbury to Montezuma June 21-27. The Flint is the only thing between Montezuma and Oglethorpe. I was told that God made the Flint River to keep Montezuma folks out of Oglethorpe, but I'll be danged if those Montezuma people didn't go and build a bridge. I was also told that the Flint River started when someone left an outdoor faucet running somewhere outside of Atlanta, so take that for what it's worth.
The event featuring Mr. Jimmy is a fish fry beginning at 6 p.m. at the old junior high school on Sumter Street. Tickets are $25 and very limited. Click here to get them or for more information.
The menu will include fried fish, french fries, onion rings, hushpuppies, fried vegetables, cheese grits, and cole slaw. The program will be followed with dancing and "foot stomping" along with a local bluegrass band.
The Wall Street Burger Shoppe of Manhattan is offering a hamburger that costs $175 and is topped with gold. It’s made of Kobe beef. It comes with black truffles, foie gras and Gruyere cheese in addition to gold flakes. You can read more about it here.
Idiots. And you wonder why the economy's going to hell in a handbasket. Wall Street is killing industries with ridiculous expectations. Why? So people can blow money on $175 burgers.
I'll bet anybody $175 that I can get a lot better burger (several actually, plus fries and a drink) with $5 at Troy's Snack Shack in Montezuma, Ga., than that Wall Street burger. If I were a millionaire (as a writer and journalist, slim chance of that happening), I'll still take Troy's over a pretentious Manhattan burger shoppe any day of the week. Just because you throw an unnecessary "e" at the end of your name doesn't make your food worth any more money.
Gotta give a shout out to my "sister" Laurie Hair, the CEO of Flint River Hospital in Montezuma, Ga. Her hospital recently came in third in the state in a HCAPPS customer satisfaction survey out of 72 Georgia hospitals. Columbus' Hughston Orthopedic Hospital came in fourth, just behind Flint River. You can find out how various hospitals ranked by clicking here. The survey is no small deal, by the way. Ignore it, and you'll lose significant Medicare money.
The top 4, by the way, were well ahead of the pack. I spent a week in Hughston in 2000 when I had a broken femur, hip and pelvis from a car wreck and they were fantastic. I was born at Flint River, back when it was called Riverside Hospital. When folks asked my parents which baby was me, they replied, "The white one."
Laurie is also my mom's boss and not my real sister. I adopted her several months ago. And she's not just my sister but a good friend.
A friend of mine forwarded this picture of a message she put up on the sign outside the insurance agency for which she works in Montezuma, Ga. Note there's a big cemetery next door. The sign has been changed, but not before I was able to forward the picture to a few folks in an effort to embarrass my friend. They came back with some other suggestions for her future signs:
Cole Insurance — put your mind at rest before you're laid to rest.
Think Cole before you get cold.
Think you don't need insurance, you're dead wrong.
It's never almost never too late to think of insurance.
Get it before you're gone.
Insurance ... because your family is counting on you.
I discovered this island during Saturday's kayaking excursion down the Flint River. I think I'm gonna name it something really unique like Chris Island. So stay the heck off. I'm sure a few folks have seen it before, but that didn't stop Christopher Columbus from discovering America. To which the Native Americans responded, "You didn't discover anything, moron. You were late."
Nevertheless, I've declared this island for my own, and I'll probably write more about it for this Sunday's column. There are bound to be a few unique rules on Chris Island.
As for the kayaking trip, it's the best I've had in the 8 months or so that I've have the kayak. I got in the river at a bridge in Macon County where the last working ferry in Georgia once was. I crossed the river on that old ferry many times. I believe it's now at the Agrirama in Tifton. Once I got in, I didn't see another human being or house for two hours. Nothing but trees and nice animals. When I repeat this trip in spring and summer, I'm sure I'll be joined by mean animals such as gators and snakes. I've seen many gators on that stretch of the river before.
It was nice to get away from everything and everybody for a while. Helps you appreciate everything and everybody.
I usually hate weddings. The formality. The pretentiousness. The stress. The uncomfortable clothes. The chick food. The non-alcoholic punch in the church reception hall. Somebody's Aunt Gladys pinching my cheeks. Yeah, those cheeks!
But I went to a wedding Saturday that was different from any I'd been to before, and not just because it was 145 degrees with 110 percent humidity. My cousin Shane got hitched in Angel City, a bikers' haven in Unadilla. It looks like a Wild West town, except that the horses can go 120 mph and rattle windows when they get riled up. The wedding party had rented out Angel City for the whole weekend. Angel City is usually open only for motorcycle rallies, which are becoming more frequent.
The groom and about 20 other bikers, including the biker preacher, came roaring up to the altar Saturday night to the tune of AC/DC's "Hell's Bells." (When was the last time a little old lady on the church organ pounded out that tune at a wedding?) And any preacher who'll officiate a wedding that includes the song "Hell's Bells" is cool with me. Of course, the bride, Pam, walked to the altar to the tune of Kenny G's "Songbird," which I kinda like too. Hey, I like rock, smooth jazz and rowdy country, among other things. My musical taste is as eclectic as was this wedding.
Poor Pam was the only one dressed in uncomfortable clothes for this wedding. Perhaps that's why she was prettier than the rest of us, not that she had a lot of competition from folks like me in my khaki shorts and golf shirt. I was overdressed.
Actually, other than the motorcycles, AC/DC, Port-o-Potties, motorcycles and kids running through the swinging doors of saloons, it was a pretty standard wedding. I chatted with a lot of folks during and after the wedding, and a lot of folks just came to witness the unique spectacle. Ain't that a switch! Most folks go to weddings out of obligation. A lot of folks at this wedding actually wanted to be there. What a concept! A fun wedding! Everybody loved it. And most noted how it seemed like a traditional wedding ... what with all the prayin', procession, ring bearin', the standard reception food, the first dance, the father-daughter dance, the mother-son dance.
But the best part, as with anything back home, is being with "my people." Small-town folks. Nobody putting on airs. Everybody glad to see everybody. No rude humans. And it's not just because Rule No. 8 in Angel City's town ordinances is "no attitudes." No one broke No. 2 "no fighting" and not even No. 4 "no nudity," although it was so hot it didn't seem like such a bad idea. I didn't want to give somebody's Aunt Gladys any ideas, though.
There was a lot of family I hadn't seen in a long time. Heck, I hadn't seen Shane in nearly 20 years, when we weren't too far from tramping around Ideal, Ga., playing "The Dukes of Hazzard." He was Bo, and I was Luke. I'd talked to the real Bo Duke, John Schneider, more recently than I had Shane. They've both turned out well.
There were a good many folks I didn't recognize, even after they introduced themselves with the always aggravating, "You remember me?"
"Uh, uh, er, I'm not sure," I respond, or something like that.
"Fred. Fred Jenkins," or something like that they respond.
"Oh yeah. I knew that. You were one of those Jenkinses."
"Yeah!"
But I knew most of the old friends, although it would have helped if I'd have had my high school yearbook with me. I chatted with Cleveland and asked how his daddy's breakfast operation was going. The last time I saw his dad, he told me "the only problem is sometimes we get the orders a little wrong, but I tell 'em you just eat whatever I put in the bag because whatever I put in that bag is good." I guess his daddy's embraced that style of service because Cleveland said he had a sign that read: "Order what you want, eat what you get." I don't know if you can operate very long like that in Columbus, but he's been in business a couple of decades now.
My wife was glad that I didn't bump into any of my old girlfriends. It seems like every time we've been to Macon County or Americus since 1990 or so, we'd bump into some old flame. That really wasn't that hard to do. I didn't date hardly anyone more than two weeks. It's not that I was a playboy. Far from it. Ladies, look at me: Would you go out on a second date with this guy? I didn't think so.
I introduced myself to Mary Ellen. I hadn't spoken to her since, well, ever. She was a smokin' hot senior cheerleader and I was a freshman dork nearly 20 years ago. I knew my limitations. (I don't now, but I did then.) Talking to her could have gotten me run out of Macon County High School. She said she remembered me. I almost choked on my cocktail weenie. Man, I bet she'd lie about other stuff, too. At least I'm not a freshman dork anymore. I'm a 37-year-old dork now, by golly.
I chatted with the preacher in the Angel City Saloon after the ceremony and asked him about the dichotomy of officiating a "Hell's Bells" motorcycle wedding. He asked me, "Where would Jesus be?" It wasn't a rhetorical question. He wanted an answer.
"Um, here?"
"Exactly." He had a good point. I just can't fathom Jesus in a three-piece suit. I don't recall any "Sermon in the Saloon" either, but I agree that Jesus would likely be out there with the "one-percenters." The biker preacher was a great guy, and it was nice to see a Christian who's not the least bit judgmental. He said he was saved in 1986 and the Lord told him to get off his bike. Ten years later, the Lord told him to get back on the bike and spread the Gospel.
I chatted with Wayne, the co-founder of Angel City. They've got a slew of musical acts coming, and hopefully sometime next year they'll have city sewer service and the Port-O-Potties can hit the road. He encouraged me to come back, whether I've got a motorcycle or not. Maybe I can borrow my co-worker Brad's scooter. You can find out more about Angel City here.
I know a lot of folks with sticks lodged in unfortunate places of the body who would have felt terribly out of place on Saturday night. I never really felt like I fit in back home, nor have I ever felt like I fit in anywhere. Guess that's the price of being an anti-social loner. But I know this: I was damn homesick when I left Unadilla (and then the Huddle House in Montezuma.) I guess my wife summed it up best:
"Why does it seem like everybody's so much happier when we go to small towns?"
Maybe small town folks have got it all figured out. One thing I've learned for certain over the years, the bigger things get, the stupider they get: Government, colleges, businesses, corporations, cities, Rosie O'Donnell. I reckon we've been out of the small town too long. Maybe we could shrink Columbus. It would be nice. Politicians and business leaders embrace "growth" at all costs, even under the guise of "smart growth" and other such oxymorons.
I also know that the bar has been raised for the next wedding I choose to attend or get dragged to. And to Shane and Pam, here's hoping the rest of your life together has as much style as your wedding night.
Note, here are a couple of shaky videos of the groom arriving for the ceremony and one of the happy couple (And check out the photos in the following post):
I just learned that Pepsi's Aquafina bottled water and Coca-Cola's Dasani are made from purified tap water. Perhaps I'd have already known this if I drank the stuff. But with a kitchen faucet and a water fountain at work, I haven't had the urge to part with hard-earned money for water. Besides, I grew up drinking water from an artesian well along a street in Montezuma, Ga., and from garden hoses, and it had no adverse affects on me -- although my son was born with six fingers on each hand. Just kidding ... it's seven.
Now, if I find out they've been getting Diet Dr Pepper out of some faucet somewhere and charging me hundreds of dollars a year for it, then I'm gonna be mad. I'm also gonna find out where they got that faucet and get me one. The heck with tap water. Although, showers might get a bit sticky.
I'm currently the director of communications at The Fuller Center for Housing in Americus, Ga.
I grew up in Oglethorpe, Ga., which literally has just one traffic light, and I remain a small-town boy at heart. I consider myself a "yupneck," which is half-yuppie, half-redneck.
I've written for the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer since 1997. I've also worked as a sports writer and columnist at newspapers in Americus, Valdosta and Montezuma, all in Georgia.
Ideally, I'd live out the rest of my days as a novelist living in relative seclusion somewhere on the beautiful Georgia Coast, dragging my kayak onto lonesome beaches and jotting down the occasional story idea.
