First Tuesday in May

Well, this has been an odd day. It started out with Cindy oversleeping because one of the electrical circuits is acting wonky. The alarm clock was on one of the circuits which is out. So, as I left for Barnesville and my hearing in the City Court of Barnesville, Cindy was trying to scramble to get it together to go in late.

Then at the hearing in Barnesville the judge denied my motion to reopen the case to allow us to try to work a deal where my client would keep his driving privileges in the state of Georgia. I really felt ambushed.

Then my role as the Dark Angel continued today. You know, where I drive all over the state selling peoples' houses on the courthouse steps. As I drove from Barnesville to Monroe, I utilized my gps to try to get a quick route through the country to the courthouse in Walton County. The Magellan sent me eastward toward Monticello, then back northwest toward Monroe. As I drove, I suddenly realized that I was traveling in the vicinity of the Tom Baynham Alternative Senior Trip, which took place in the Spring of my senior year in High School. Back then, a number of us had been scandalized by the cost of the Senior Trip to the Bahamas and vowed to come up with an alternative to same which would be much cheaper and equally fun.

Of course, as it turned out, there was very little fun out in the country in East Georgia for a bunch of city boys from Dunwoody. We drove out the Covington Highway past Covington, then took a right down Georgia 11 to Mansfield, Georgia, and a rough deer camp back in the woods on a pond. We stopped along the way at a little hamlet called Pony Express, Georgia, to buy beer for the weekend. The hamlet consisted of a crossroads and an old store and gas pumps. The significant plus was that they had a beer cooler which kept the beer perfectly cold for consumption.

It also turned out that at the next intersection, another little hamlet called Hub, had a drive inn. That night, we drove over to Hub and drove up to the office to pay for the night's entertainment. As we pulled up to the little house to pay for the triple feature scheduled for the evening, the attendant looked in the car, saw three of us, and said, "Three Dollars, please."

With that, the three of us reached into our pockets to pay our three bucks. I handed the attendant three dollars out of my pocket and she handed me three tickets. So for a total of three dollars, the three of us got in for the night's entertainment. The Hub Drive-Inn was cheap, to say the least.

It appears that the Hub Drive Inn is no more. However, the store in Pony Express is still going strong. Yesterday, I put some gas in my tank and bought a drink and reminisced with the clerk behind the counter. At least some things stay relatively the same. You can still buy relatively cheap gas and cold beer in Pony Express, Georgia. As I drove around North Georgia, it was comforting to see that some things remain roughly the same.

Heaven knows everything else seems to change on a daily basis.