Athens World

Sitting on the porch and reading this time of the year is always an enjoyable pastime. This year the cicadas seem unusually plentiful and almost impossibly loud. I notice there are many more dragon flies this summer compared to previous summers as well.  I am not sure why that is or if it has anything to do with our newly arrived Joro spiders. But listening to the July Flies, what the country folks call cicadas , I am reminded of my fraternal grandmother Dot. The stories I could tell about Dot!….

Anyway she told me years ago that the first day you heard the July flies buzzing was 90 days out from the first frost.  At least that was the conventional wisdom for western North Carolina.

At the time I was an organic gardener tending to square foot plots of lots of different vegetables. I kept a pretty extensive garden log book each year. One cool morning prior to my commute to Atlanta to my programming job, I started the car up. What looked like fog on the windshield turned out to be a light frost. HEY! I remember noting the first July Fly buzzing in the garden log. So back in the house I went, got my log book out and counted the days on the calendar. It was exactly 90 days earlier. Dot had died the previous year. I went back and got in the car again and I had a little shiver that had nothing to do with the temperature. 

That was the only year that it worked out to exactly 90 days. In fact other years were off by 2 or 3 weeks either way. But that one year…

So there I was, an 11th grader at Clarke Central, the newly minted merging of Athens High (the white school) and Burney-Harris High (the black school). Sitting in an English class that was boring me to tears. The teacher, whom to me was a boring old lady was in reality probably 20 years younger than my current age.  She handed out an assignment to the class. Write a poem that may or may not rhyme about something in this class that had an impression on you. 

My impression of the class and the teacher led me to write the following:

I can see without looking,

While you look without seeing. 

I can know without knowledge,

While you have knowledge but don’t know.

I know the course of nature,

While you know only what’s taught.

You have the curse of progression,

While I have the gift of thought. 

 I turned in my poem which apparently pissed off the teacher and I suppose it should have. She gave me a C, thereby quashing my budding development as a poet. 

 I never learned much in high school outside of 9 ball and 8 ball at Gandy’s Recreation Center. That’s where I spent a significant amount of the school day so it was solely my fault. I learned a lot more after high school in the US Army, at UGA and graduate school. But the one lesson I learned at Clarke Central was in that English class and the lesson was that almost everything depends on perspective. 

Originally posted by Anonymous

The ladies cheered for me as I ran up the walkway toward the Gamma Phi Beta house, and I felt like cheering, too, because I had just been offered the use of solar viewing glasses at the peak of darkness during our 99% solar eclipse. I had not expected to get a chance to get such a good direct look at the sun during the most magical moment of our eclipse, but I had all the luck to be in the right place at the right time.

I’m a bus driver for the University of Georgia. August 21 was just another workday, and with so many part time student workers marking themselves as “unavailable,” I expected to be at work driving around, so I had no idea if I would be in a place where I could park my bus to take a look. Besides, I had not found any solar viewing glasses, so I did not think I would get to look at the sun. I did see an Athens Transit driver put on a pair of glasses and look up while her bus was at a service stop, so of course I felt a little left out.

Before the eclipse, I heard on our two-way radio that Sanford Drive at the stadium was full of pedestrians going to the eclipse viewing party. As I made my trips on the Milledge Avenue Route, I picked up passengers carrying solar glasses, and many of them had no backpacks, which indicated they were not going to class. One passenger asked me “Are you excited?”, so I explained how I didn’t know what to expect to see today. She told me that she had gotten a tip on solar glasses being available at a particular store in town and bought a pair before they sold out.

Continue reading “Eclipse viewing at Gamma Phi Beta”

Originally posted by Lynn

Who would have thought that the simple reading of a new book and a lavender cup of latte from Jittery Joe’s would have landed me the experience I had this morning? This encounter has consumed my mind all day and I want to share my story. 

In order to enjoy my coffee and to be able to focus on my reading, I walked around downtown until I found a park bench with the smallest amount of sun shining on it so I wouldn’t sweat and melt down into my shoes. 

Edward, whom I would meet in a few moments, was charging his cell phone while sending text messages to his family and friends. 

Continue reading “Kindred spirits”

Originally posted by Adrian

I thought I was alone as I was walking down steps and about to cross a parking lot. I sneezed twice, and from behind a line of trees and shrubbery I heard a woman’s voice say, “Bless you!” Surprised, my only reaction was, “Ha, thanks!” I don’t know where she was or what she was doing there, but it is certainly wacky to respond to a stranger’s sneeze at such a distance through a vegetative buffer. Anecdotes like these are why I started Athens World, right?

Originally posted by Tim

I first saw this plaque on the sidewalk years ago as a child. Its across the street from Jittery Joes coffee, which used to be the only gas station in that area that sold ‘white gas’. My father insisted on running only white gas in his lawn mower so I had plenty of occasions to walk up there with a gas can. But back to the plaque. I told my mother about the plaque and she almost immediately got all teary eyed. This puzzled me until she told me that she had a brother who was hit and killed by a car in Asheville many many years ago. I never knew about that until then.

I wonder about who this kid was in Athens back in 1922….

Originally posted by Bob

You might be old school Athens if …

1. You know who said this: “Keep smiling until 10 o’clock, and the rest of the day will take care of itself.”

2. You know what occupied the Five Guys Hamburgers location before the video arcade.

3. You remember the overpowering aroma of sweetness at the A & A Bakery.

4. You can name Athens’ morning paper when the Banner-Herald was the afternoon paper.

5. You actually knew the gentleman for whom Bishop Park is named.

Got some more?

Originally posted by Adrian

Somewhere in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series it was written that the secret to life, the universe, and everything is 42. At the University of Georgia, building number 0042, Peabody Hall, houses the departments of philosophy and religion, fields in which people try to figure out life, the universe, and everything. Coincidence? I think not.

Originally posted by Adrian

Athens is often thought of as a small town, but it is plenty big enough to have confusing street name issues.

• Edgewood Drive: There are two Edgewoods, one in the Kingswood Subdivision and the other off Whitehead Road. I don’t know the official history, but in an effort to distinguish them the one in Kingswood is called Edgewood Drive and the other one is called Edgewood Road. Unfortunately, the post office calls them both Edgewood Drive, and they share a range of street numbers, and they’re both in the same ZIP code. There are some problems with duplicate addresses: for instance, the county tax assessor has two different properties called “145 Edgewood Dr.” It is apparent that the government needs to fix this problem. There was an article about it in OnlineAthens.com (“Mix-ups hitting home on streets bearing same name.”)
• Hancock: Don’t shorten a road name to “Hancock” — there are at least four of them. There’s West Hancock Avenue, East Hancock Avenue, Hancock Lane, and even Hancock Industrial Way. Although East and West Hancock Avenue are a continuous road, they each have their own series of street numbers. Be precise.
• Atlanta Highway: Other communities have roads called “Atlanta Highway,” and they are not always the same route since a lot of highways go to Atlanta, obviously. In Athens the confusion is over where it starts. As West Broad Street goes toward Atlanta, the name changes to Atlanta Highway somewhere around the Middle Oconee River. If you are telling me to go somewhere on Atlanta Highway but it’s really called West Broad Street, then I’m thinking about a different part of town. To make matters worse, this route is designated as the U.S. Highway 78 Business route, a different route from the regular U.S. Highway 78.
• Oconee Street/Oak Street/Lexington Road: If you follow the Highway 78 Business route southeast out of downtown, the road name changes a lot. First you are on Oconee Street, but the route becomes Oak Street where “Oconee Street” actually takes a right turn. And then guess what? The road becomes Oconee Street again where the other “Oconee Street” doglegs back onto Highway 78 Business. If you continue, you’ll drive under the Perimeter Highway overpass and then the road becomes Lexington Road when you drive past the intersection with Barnett Shoals Road. I don’t know the history, but the Oconee/Oak confusion suggests that intersections were rebuilt at some point in the past to divert traffic on and off Oak Street. Maybe a reader here can write a comment if anyone knows the story.
• Numbered Streets: In many cities you’ll find streets called First Street, Second Street, and so forth in the downtown area, but not in Athens. Our downtown grid doesn’t use a traditional naming scheme. Our numbered streets are in a residential area outside of downtown, and they don’t even form an orderly grid. This area has an Odd Street, but this name is given to three segments that are not even connected in one continuous path. (Update: In 2021, the Mayor and Commission voted to rename two of these three segments for Rosa Nell Howard.)
• 2500 West Broad Street: I wanted to point out this mystery. This is an office complex located on the odd-numbered (southern) side of the street. Travelers could potentially have trouble finding it because they would be looking on the wrong side. The two properties to the east of it are numbered 2465 and 2455. I also don’t know the story, and the Jackson Company Realtors have not replied to my e-mails asking about it. (While this is the mailing address, the tax assessor calls it 2500 Atlanta Highway, adding to the confusion about where West Broad Street ends and Atlanta Highway begins.)

Please post comments about any other road name confusion you have encountered in Athens. I didn’t even want to get started on “Milledge.”

Originally posted by Tim

I ate lunch at the Mayflower this afternoon and man what a treat it was. Not the food, which was also very good, but the things/people I observed there is what made it the treat it turned out to be. (Salmon patties, fried okra, turnip greens, corn bread and of course sweet tea for those who might wonder what I ate).

I was in the next to rear most booth, sitting by myself. An elderly gentleman came in after me and sat the booth right behind me. Shortly after that four college aged kids sat in the booth in front of me. In the front of the restaurant was a little middle aged guy, balding, maybe 5’5” and 140 pounds tops. I have seen him almost every time I have been in the Mayflower. What is remarkable about him is that he is almost a living cartoon character. He is highly animated, he flits around from table to cash register, then out the door to chase someone down on the sidewalk, then back in the door and over to the table, all the while gesturing with his hands. Pondering this, I heard the older waitress asking the gentleman behind me how he was doing, calling him by name. So he’s a regular too. The old man literally wailed saying this was the worst day of his life. His bird died this morning he reported, then broke down into sobs. The waitress tried to comfort him to no avail and left to get his tea. No order was ever placed, his Friday ritual is no doubt well defined over the years. I sat with my back to him, listening as he occasionally heaved a big sigh or a sob. I felt bad for the old man.

Now the four kids in front of me had placed their order and after their tea was delivered, one of the kids asked if they could pray. They clasped hands and one began to pray. Daddy God, he began, and went on to thank him for allowing them to share witness with others. The prayer was interspersed with references to Jesus, Daddy God, Father, Daddy, and each sentence usually began with something like ‘Daddy, we just come asking….. followed by some directions for God to follow to benefit the petitioners. Lots of humble ‘We just ask’, ‘We just thank’, We just take time’, you get the picture. I also heard him ask that, ‘much like you, Father God, designed our bodies to use this food prepared for us, we just ask that you use our bodies in your kingdom’. I had to wait then to see if any of them had ordered spaghetti, but they didn’t. That would have been too weird.

Now, along with this lengthy instruction to God, superimpose the sobs of an old man behind me. Superimpose a living cartoon character on that composite scene, and you might understand why I was beginning to feel weird. I ate more slowly to see what else might unfold. Once the prayerful kids’ food was delivered, their conversation turned to obese dogs, cell phone ring tones and other more mundane topics. The cartoon character danced out the door after paying his bill at the cash register. The old man continued to occasionally sob or sigh behind me. I thought for a moment about asking the kids in front of me to instruct God with respect to the dead bird, but thought better of it. Maybe God doesn’t care about dead birds, particularly this close to another SEC football season.

Paying my bill, I asked the lady at the cash register about the dead bird and the cartoon guy. She rolled her eyes, smiled and told me I ought to eat there more often. She’s right. I will.