Georgia Is on My Mind

Georgia has been on my mind lately. One good reason, the end of this summer, and the beginning of fall,(2009), Georgia has been hit with almost unprecedented weather conditions, deadly floods throughout Northern Georgia, including my hometown, Atlanta. Another reason, as of late I'm becoming nostalgic, thinking back to the days when I was young, and living at home with my family. Also, it is my birthplace, and childhood home. Most of all I think about my mother, she's in her eighties, and still doing good, however, as I get older I am coming to grips with the fact that she is elderly. My mother has been so active all of her life it's hard to think of her as an older person, however, lately she's been slowing down and it's readily apparent that she's an octogenarian.

As with a lot of us, we thought life was oh so sweet, and it probably was to us kids. However, our parents most likely had a different prospective. Okay, this is not the tenor of this hub. Even though I wrote a hub entitled Why I love Southern California, and I do, Georgia is not far from my affections. I do wish I could have a home in both places and live part of my time in both. Let me stop dreaming, and tell you a little about Georgia. As a matter of fact, Georgia's song is, "Georgia on My Mind," how appropriate.

As I write about Georgia, I've learned so many things about the state after I left it in the late 60's. To begin with, some of the foods I grew up eating, peaches, pecans and peanuts were some of Georgia's most famous crops. Even though Georgia is the Peach State, it is sometimes called the Goober State, goober being the nickname for peanuts. What some might call roasting peanuts, we said parching peanuts. It was a Saturday night ritual, instead of popcorn, (we were too poor to even buy popcorn, and peanuts were cheap), ergo, peanuts were what we ate when we watched TV.

I never realized, Georgia is the 24th largest state in the U.S. With a population of over 9.6 million (2009), Georgia is the tenth most populous state in the USA. Major Rivers are The Chattahoochee River, nicknamed the "Hooch," The Savannah River, The Suwannee River, ("way down upon the Suwannee River," yeah, that river).

I did know that Atlanta, the capital of Georgia, is the world headquarters of The Coca-Cola Company,(Coca-Cola was invented in Georgia by John S. Pemberton in 1886. and first sold out of a pharmacy in Atlanta), and Delta Airlines.

Atlanta has the third largest concentration of Fortune 500 companies, and 75% of the Fortune 1000 companies have a presence. The Atlanta Airport is the world's busiest airport, with Delta Airlines having it's hub there, Delta also has the largest Airline hub in the world.

Tyler Perry, writer, producer, director, of such films as Diary of A Mad Black Woman, Daddy's Little Girls, Why Did I Get Married, and The Family That Preys, opened a Hollywood style studio in Atlanta, in October, 2008. The first African American to accomplish such a feat.

Oh hey, I just found an interesting fact, Berry College in Rome, Georgia(never heard of it), is thought to have the largest campus of any college in the world. The recently built Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta is the world's largest indoor aquarium, it has over 8 million gallons of water and around 100,000 animals with over 500 species. These are facts I obtained from the Internet, from sites such as Wikipedia.

A silly fact: In Gainesville, Georgia, it is illegal to eat chicken with a fork. Oops I might go to jail if I visited Gainesville and ordered chicken.

The Atlanta University Center is the largest concentration of African -American colleges in America and includes Spelman, Morehouse and Morris Brown college.

I am a creature of habit. I always eat at the same places, just because. I eat at the Soul Food Restaurant, called The Busy Bee. The thought of the food, which, just as I'm writing, makes my mouth water. There's actually a Ham Hock, and  Neck Bone dinner, I don't know about you, but I've never heard of that, but because I like both kinds of meat, it sounds good, although I've never eaten either of these meals. As I said, being a creature of habit I usually eat the same thing, the oxtails and gravy with all the trimmings, (yum, yum). Let me stop, before I try to catch a plane, just for the food. Another one of my favorite spots is called, "This Is It." I also go to the world famous Varsity drive-in restaurant, where most of my family has worked at least once, even I. For some reason I always have to go back to the place where I grew up, I don't care if I go 3 times a year, I still do the same thing, go figure.

Some of these things I'm about to name, the locals, might say are not interesting, but I say, if you go to Georgia, and have time, just to say that you saw or did theses things, is the reason to do them. Some I have done and some I haven't.

1. Martin Luther King Jr. Museum in Atlanta. Downtown Atlanta around Centennial Olympic Park
2. Also in Atlanta, The Coca-Cola Bottling museum, Underground Atlanta, The Varsity Drive-In Restaurant, The Atlanta Aquarium, Stone Mountain State Park.
3. Other places in Georgia include, Savannah, St. Simeon Island, Jekyll Island, Athens
4. In Pine Mountain, there is Calloway Gardens, and Wild Animal Safari, neither to be missed.

There are many more things that are interesting to me, but I'll leave these for another time.