State Botanical Gardens in Athens, GA

The Globe--An Athens Landmark Pub

Whenever I'm Athens on a hot summer's day, you can count on my stopping by the Globe for a cool, sweating glass of something lovely. The dark wood paneling is a welcome respite away from the recoils of an unforgiving sun, and to sit at one of those thick pub tables with a Bass Ale or Guinness is nothing short of transporting. If you stop in hungry one day, I highly recommend trying their version of the traditional Fish and Chips. They serve them with a cayenne-laced tartar sauce on the side, and they fry the fish to such a startling perfection that would leave the mouths of British chefs agape. (Also, any place that bothers to hang a print of the bios of prominent Irish writers is just fine by me.)

P.S. Forgive the grainy iPhone photo...I left my "real" camera in the car with a dead battery. :)

The Town's Got Soul

I keep returning to this town every weekend, waiting for a house or a job to fall into my lap. Spicy Mayan Mochas are served up at the Jittery Joe's Roasting Company, Oatmeal Stouts at the Globe, and the best of Chicken Cubans and Fish Tacos are bestowed by Bruno at Cali 'n Tito's. I see a return is inevitable. I drive up the streets of Normaltown and Cobbham, just hoping for the sign: For Lease 706-...-....

Athens, Again (and Still)

Love Me Some Athens!

For Sale in Athens--Sigh

Cali 'n Tito's; Athens, Georgia

Athens, Georgia

A stone's throw from the English Department , the Founder's Garden is where I went to study for my summer-semester Milton class. This is the "lady of the garden," and behind her, the wrought iron table where I first read Paradise Lost and drank Dr. Peppers from a campus vending machine.
Every time I'm in Athens, I make it a special point to visit my former professor Hubert McAlexander, a true mentor and a one-of-kind Southern gem. It was in his class that I first read Faulkner.
The lady casts a sideways glance westward...

The ash can outside of the English Department..."Thou still unravished bride of quietude" --Faulkner

The Little One, Founder's Garden, January 2009

This is undoubtedly the fattest hawk I've ever witnessed; I had never seen the squirrels on North Campus sit so still on their oak tree perches.

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...

*******

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