Nausea, or something like it

I woke up this morning at 5:10. I lay in bed thinking about business over the next few months and the major expenditures of the first five months. Boy, would it be nice to get a boost in the overall economy soon. If the real estate market would just perk up to the point where it was steady.

Meanwhile, we are on the edge of finishing up a number of things which would allow a little breathing room. Kate graduates, so all of those expenditures will soon be over. Of course, Kate is procrastinating about finding a position for work after graduation. I can't blame her; sometimes I think that going to law school was just an elaborate way to put off the inevitable.

When Cindy and I moved to Griffin, I thought it would be a sturdy little town with a good economy and nice folks in which to raise a family. In many ways it was and still is such a place. But it has become more of a bedroom community for the great megalopolis and doesn't stand on its own the way it used to. Nevertheless, I see signs of life there and it survives a whole lot better than some places I see.

I am getting to a place of pessimism here that is not very helpful. Sometimes when you see businesses closing and people moving on to other things it is just the natural progression of life. Businesses rise, fall and are replaced by other businesses. I understand that. Its just when there comes a tipping point and all of a sudden you are surrounded by empty buildings and no one is trying to keep the ball rolling in the air.

I see towns and cities which get caught in such a spin and end up disintegrating. I am confidant about Griffin, mainly because of its proximity to Atlanta. We live in a much more expansive world and the geographical distance between Griffin and Atlanta is much closer than it was, even when Cindy and I moved there in 1983.

I remember when I drove down to Barnesville to interview with the judge. I had to look on a map to find where Barnesville was located. When I got there, I had to stop at a gas station to ask where the courthouse was located. This area seemed so far away from what I knew.

Then we moved to Griffin and a little closer to Atlanta. But now Atlanta is different and when it isn't spinning madly into developmental chaos, it seems to disintegrate. All of the institutions of my childhood are different, of lesser value.

Where is the church? Locked inside mega churches which go from one scandal to another. Where is the old democratic party? Cut into factions in which the main part has become the new Republican party. Not that there is much change, just the label is different. Where are the old entertainment venues? Closed up and replaced by seedier or more expensive venues. Is that true? Or was I more accepting of seedy in my youth? Still, the old Great Southeast Music Hall is just a memory and Underground is a minutia of what it was when John and Machey and I used to drive down on the weekends and drink beer and eat pizza and watch a bluegrass band from Hampton (the Bear Creek bluegrass band)

There is a part of me that can't believe that three guys from Dunwoody were driving down to Underground Atlanta on a weekly basis to listen to a band from Hampton. It was a smaller world than I thought. Entertainment was more democratic in those days. We used to go to the Great Southeast Music Hall, pay about $3.00 for a ticket, about the same for a bucket of beer (yes, they served beer in buckets) or a carafe of wine, and listen to music by such artists as Willie Dixon, Doug Kershaw, B B King, Dr Hook and the Medicine Show, Savoy Brown, Cowboy, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Doc Watson, and the Greg Allman band. I even saw Steve Martin and Martin Mull on a twin bill where Steve Martin opened for Martin Mull because Martin Mull was the more established comedian. Believe it or not.

I even saw quite a few excellent local acts. There was a band named Thermos Greenwood and the Colored People. All of the band members had their faces dyed different colors. There was a guy named Gove Skrivener (I think) I saw a couple of times who played guitar and autoharp and the first time I saw him he brought his dog on stage on a rope and the dog just lay on the stage while he played until it was time to go (go to www.solidgove.com).

Then there was the Electric Ballroom which was located in a large room across the street from the Fox theater. I saw Billie Joel when he was first becoming a national phenomenon. I took Karen Butler. Karen was a girl I went to Dunwoody with and who dated quite a lot of my friends. Oddly, all of us were stricken with Karenoia after several dates. By that I mean that Karen announced that we couldn't go out anymore because of some odd assorted reason. John, who dated her the longest, got the most elaborate case of Karenoia when she called him and told him they couldn't date anymore because she was engaged. It didn't matter that John hadn't seen her for about three years and was married to someone else. Oh well, sometimes its good to get those issues resolved in the open, even if the issue is only in the mind of Karen. We also saw Wet Willie, Little Feet and Rory Gallagher at the Ballroom.

I remember going to see Rory Gallagher at the Ballroom and staying way into the early morning hours before heading home. The next morning, I awakened about 5:30 to caravan with Don and Bill back to W&L. Somewhere along I-85, I abruptly woke up from a snooze of a second or two, staring at the oncoming bridge abutment, jerked the steering wheel and drove with a certain measure of fear for the rest of the journey back to Lexington. That was a close call.

Then there was the Moonshadow. Named, I guess, for the song by Cat Stephens. I went there several times, most notably with Cindy and Sue Mitchell and her husband Danny. At some point in the middle of the band's set, the night and the nearness of Cindy welled up and spilled and I kissed her on the top of the head. Then on her cheek. And the rest was history. Twenty five years later, this coming Monday, is the anniversary of our first real date in New Orleans. It was only a matter of days, twenty five years ago, when we found ourselves in a wooden booth in the Moonshadow, snuggling together in the booth, watching a band, the name of which escapes me right now. Of course, that's not the important part of the story at this point.

Ah, those were the days.