Time Capsule, Atlanta 1997
In 1998, I went on a three-day trip by bus with my grandfather from our home in NC to Atlanta Georgia to see his beloved Braves play in their new stadium, Turner Field. After returning home, I wrote a report on my trip. it was the first time I'd ever been on an overnight trip to a major city. It was two years after the Atlanta Olympics famous for Muhammed Ali lighting the torch and a terrorist bombing that was still unsolved at the time I wrote this. You can tell by the prices I was shocked at and some of the language I used that this was written in a different era.
This is the morning after a three-day trip to Atlanta to see the Braves lose two out of three to the Dodgers. Actually, the baseball games were secondary to the phenomena of Lil' Abner goes to the big city. I'm sure I gave myself away by walking around with my head perpetually inclined upward, staring at the tall buildings. I found out that homeless people vaguely frighten me and arouse strong guilt feelings. I gave away two dollars plus a handful of change. I gave one guy a half a pack of smokes and was turned down by another because I didn't have menthols. I gaped in wonderment at the other tourists lining up on the sidewalk outside of Planet Hollywood and the Hardrock Cafe to eat nine-dollar hamburgers. Two blocks away were the restaurants where real people eat. I tried a couple of Oriental places (2024 note: I know that we say Asian now), that being my favorite food. I also had a plate of curried chicken and fried plantains at this cheap Caribbean joint.
On all of the light poles in the downtown area there were these handwritten flyers, "THE TEMPERATURE IN HELL IS 1000 DEGREES. DO NOT FORNICATE OR ABORT BABIES, SAY THE ROSARY EVERY DAY". There were t-shirt stands everywhere, continuing to try and unload excess Olympic memorabilia. You could get three shirts for 10 bucks if so inclined. Saturday morning, the one year anniversary of the games was observed with a parade down Peachtree street, one block from out hotel. I saw Andrew Young. This man who marched with MLK, was the US ambassador to the UN, and mayor of Atlanta was riding down the street in a convertible BMW giving the tourists a Queen Elizabeth wave and a fake smile.
A block in the other direction was Centennial Olympic Park, where the bomb went off. The only thing I recognized were the fountains, Richard Jewell (2024 note: Richard Jewell was an innocent man accused of the bombing) was nowhere to be found. I saw men playing chess in the park. There was a free concert from a rocking band called Gracie Moon. Out by I-20 stands the Olympic Torch, the one Muhammed Ali stood shaking under before he lit it. There are a lot of black people in Atlanta, something all the 70+ year old men on my tour kept pointing out over and over. That bothered me, the pointing, not the people.
The baseball was great. I was a little kid in a real field of dreams. I thought not about multi-million-dollar athletes but about the beautiful continuity of a timeless game. Binoculars glued to me face I stared in wonder at these men who heretofore had existed only in newsprint and on TV. They did not let me down. I ignored the 4-dollar hot dogs and $3.50 cokes. I printed my own scorecards before I left home. I watched in envy as a group of 200 kids from the parks and recreation department of Augusta, Georgia got to make a lap around the field. I could not have joined them. All of them, every single one was black. My whiteness would have given me away. I thought the South was integrated now. Oops, wrong again!
The famous Underground Atlanta was a combination of your local mall and Myrtle Beach. It didn't take long to leave it. Right down the street is the site where "Gone With the Wind" had its world premiere. An insurance company stands there now. At night horses wearing diapers clip clop by, stopping of their own volition at red lights, waiting for green so they can make another lap around the block for the 20,000th time in their sad lives.
One of the homeless guys had a stack of papers he'd probably taken from a vending machine. After getting my change and my cigarettes. He gave me a paper and said, "The paper is free. Life unfortunately, is not" Well said!
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