A Summer Ghost Town is Calling Me...

Mr. Hodgson, himself...

I've somehow taken it upon myself to get the crazy, hare-brained idea to try to acquire a cheap apartment in Athens, Georgia, for the summer to write and just be. It's a college town, so it's mostly vacant for a good two months, in which (I imagine) landlords, subletters, and small business owners would be extremely happy to see a random, temporary renter like me. And as the students leave one by one, the town kicks off its Birkenstocked-feet, sighs that collective sigh of yearly relief, and shows its true personality not bogged down by fraternity boys passed out in bushes about town and full-to-the-angry-brim parking lots.

There are sidewalk cafes that you can walk or bike to, definitely a draw for a suburbanite who never gets to walk anywhere except the one big circle around my subdivision. There's actually a section of town that I particularly covet called "Boulevard District" that has aparments in all these grand old houses and breeds a kind of bohemian lifestyle that I never got to experience in all of my very regimented (read:safe) life choices. And then there's always the old Hodgson's pharmacy that sells 50 cent ice cream cones that my son loves...

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Later...the practical side rears it head, waging war on the romantic side. Sticky logistics emerge. Just where do I find the money to fund this little bohemian, ice-cream-coned endeavor? And how will I attract the people who will rent me a little place with good light, within walking distance to downtown? Where are those sympathyzers of the arts who would rent me their mom-in-law suite for next to nada? Or EVEN BETTER, perhaps in exchange for merely puttering around in their garden, taking care of their animals while they vacation in the Keys, or tutoring their kids in summer school? Where are these people necessary to my dreams? I know they've got to be out there...

Toula's, an Athens boutique