I learned how to swing a golf club in weather not too different from this, about three miles from here in fact, about 13 years ago. That field is now being developed for … something not involved with poor uses of a 5-iron.
That seemed more polite than saying “Someone mentioned on Twitter that their heat index was 109 today. I live in a place that makes 109 seem pleasant. The heat index here was 119 here today.”
Because that’s just obnoxious, especially since I’m not making that up.
So I was a little sad I had not yet retrieved my bike, because I would have absolutely ridden at 119, at least for a few miles, just to say I had done it. That’s the sort of thing that makes my grandparents scoff and question my decision-making.
My bike was ready. It was ready on Saturday, but they would not let me pick it up until today. I waited and waited for them to call, but they did not. So I finally went over for a visit. Paid for the two tuneups and bought new CO2 cartridges.
We had a discussion on the value of the decimal point. This particular one was worth 62 dollars, and I’m glad we talked about it as it worked out in my favor. Loaded my car up, bursting into a terrific sweat just wrestling the thing in the car. Got home, unloaded the bike, and my sweat glands proved their efficiency by again jumping into service as I put the front wheel back on. This is a quick release wheel. It takes just a few seconds to slide it into the fork, seat the hub, put the brakes over the rim, tighten the brakes and the release. It was … warm out.
Picked up The Yankee at the Atlanta Airport, home of useful signs and traffic jams.
You know that place on the curb where you drop off people and pick them up, even though the airport, police and all of us agree no one else (except you, of course) should be allowed to do so? Atlanta, in addition to the shuttles, park-n-rides, MARTA, on-site lots, cabs and so on, has a two-tiered curb system. If you were exiting the airport, you’d walk out from baggage, through a door into a sultry Georgia evening and see three lanes of cars. Then you’d see a covered pedestrian refuge island. And then you’d see three more lanes of cars. Beyond that is one of the many parking decks. It is the six lanes that draw your attention, for they are a mess.
But pedestrian pickup dynamics are interesting. My first pass through the airport the inside lanes were an unmitigated disaster. So I chose the outer route. I happened to be right on time, which really meant six minutes early, so I had to do the loop again. I texted “Go to the outside lanes.”
By the time I came around for my second pass the inside lanes were sparsely populated. The outer three lanes were wrecked. Partly because of the several Atlanta PD cruisers in violation of some still-unread section of the Patriot Act prohibiting parking within a four mile radius of airports, Republicans or George Bush. The other reason the outer lanes were wrecked was because of civilian cars parked and abandoned in the pickup area in direct violation of the Patriot Act, the 28th Amendment and common human decency.
So on my third pass I chose the inside three lanes, because the cruisers and the parked cars had not moved in the 75 seconds it took for my return pass. These were moving smoothly on my second circle, but they were gridlock this time through. All three lanes were stalled, mostly because of the double-parking, diagonal attempts at preventing door dings from someone from Gwinnett County. Atlantans know this to be true.
I finally picked up my best girl from her weekend home — there was a god-niece’s baptismal to attend — and we head for home. But not before stopping at Sprayberry’s, where I visited last week. She didn’t get to go, since I’d already dropped her off at the airport by then. Tonight we closed the place, reveling in the best 9 p.m.-is-late-night atmosphere that small town Georgia has to offer. She pronounced the barbecue very good, which it is. I had the Lewis Grizzard special — barbecue, stew and perhaps the best onion rings ever — I felt a just a little more Southern. It is possible.
There’s something on the menu there, the Houston Special, which is the stew on a barbecue sandwich. This is named after Houston Sprayberry, the founder of the place (established in 1926). I did not order it, but dipped some of my stew over the pork. If anyone ever asks me what a grandpa plate tastes, this is the answer. I can imagine every old man in the region eating this. Probably they are torturing the language as they do so, while enjoying their sandwich and looking forward to a Neehi or a Moon Pie or some other regional thing. They are imparting a lifetime of wisdom and defiance on an impressionable young person who is not interested in stew on a sandwich who is thinking Stew is a stew. It should not be on a sandwich. Ironically, dropping the extra pork into the stew tasted entirely different.
Links: This is a piece of poignancy making the rounds, father and son at the first shuttle launch, and again at the last. But if you really want to get misty eyed over pictures, Dear Photograph. Give it a try. You’ll catch the premise immediately, there’s a universal call to appeal there, and you’ll realize looking through the full site is worth the time.
Birds. On radar.
And, now, the most obvious story you’ll read this week, the one that makes you question the scruples and decency of a union which would make such ridiculous claims. (Hint: this is about teachers.) Dr. Joe Morton, the state school superintendent, is retiring. He seems a good man. I’ve interviewed him several times. The AEA recently published a hit piece on the guy. And now, on the way out the door, he’s having to defend himself. But for what?
In a recent issue of the Alabama Education Association’s Alabama School Journal, AEA Associate Executive Secretary Joe Reed said Morton has been “openly hostile” to public educators and that Morton proposed that more teachers have their certificates revoked than past superintendents.
Morton told the state school board Tuesday that Reed’s assertions are “incorrect and wrong minded.”
Morton said he takes the revocation of certificates very seriously and that most revocations he recommended involved teachers using illegal drugs, having inappropriate sexual contact with students or committing crimes.
Just a little more evidence: the union is not in it for the kids.
If you were wondering, my golf swing has never improved that much. I blame the crushing heat.
