Saturday, June 30, 2007

 

This is Macon (long and ramblin')

One of my biggest concerns about moving, and probably one of the things that has kept me in place all these years when I knew darn well I should be moving on is my memory. I never claim to have the greatest memory. In fact I always bring a shopping list to the grocery store even if it is 4 items. I have found that once I arrive I get distracted and always forget one. My most recent trip I forgot to get mustard. You'll know why that is important on Monday, most likely.
The memory I have is for the friends and events of my life. Due to the fact i have lost a lot of friends in my life, I know darn well the value of friends and friendship. When I left Conyers, I left for college and just never really moved back. I was only about 75 miles away anyway so I never really felt like I'd lost anything.
Leaving Macon is a whole new ballgame. In arranging my party at Krystal (Friday the 5th at 5:30pm) I learned that my friend and fraternity brother Brian won't be able to make it. His family will be out of town. So we've been trying to work out arrangements to see each other before I move. In the phone calls and emails it is becoming clear that we both are realizing that all the time we thought we'd have just isn't there anymore. Its not just Brian, I have countless other fraternity brothers and friends in the area and my existance as a hermit these past 5+ years have really made me miss out on things. Its memories like those that you won't ever have that make you value the ones you do have. I was lucky however I sort of saw this coming, and Krystal Koincidences helped drive it home.
Back a few months I happened to run into a fraternity bother of mine, Brian (no the other Brian) at Kroger. We talked and of course Krystal came up. Within a few days I was in downtown Macon for Cherry Blossom Festival. By that point I knew I would be leaving Macon fairly soon, destination unknown and date unknown. While downtown, I decided to go take a picture of where the Krystal used to be in downtown Macon. I'd known for a while where it was just never bothered to post it here.
The small store just on the left of the alley was a Krystal many years ago. It has been several other places since, including a brief stint as "Philly South" that had the best cheesesteaks in Macon. You can also see the pink line they paint down the center of Cherry Street during Cherry Blossom Festival.
As I was walking down Cherry St. in another of those Krystal Koincidences I happened to run into Clint. I went to school with Clint many years ago and he pledged ATO way back when as well. We talked for a while and he also brought up the whole Krystal thing. Since he's from Macon he also confirmed that the location across the street was a Krytal ages ago. And in another very bizarre twist we figured out that I live in the same apartment complex his father lived in many years ago and as a kid he'd run around all over this place.
Too many koincidences, I felt, and I knew something had to be done. Krystal Karma had set in so I called Eric. Eric is also a fraternity brother of mine. We share birthdays (he's a year older) and we also have the same fraternity "Big Brother" (Rich). We discussed the fact that I was having "ATO Sightings" all over and that something must be happening. "Strange juju" I called it. I suggested we get together and catch up. So arrangements were made.
From left to right, Rhett, Brian, Eric and Clint. In another twist on top of a twist, Eric and Brian are brothers both by blood and by choice (they are both ATO's).
I have people around me in my life who are convinced that I have reached some level of greatness. I often disagree. Part of it is a rabid sense of modesty, but mostly it is because I have grown up around greatness. I know what it looks like and it's not what is in the mirror.
Rhett is an English major. Brian is an Art major. Since I am a computer science major, I was brought up in the environment that english majors and art majors were not destined to be "productive" members of society. They don't build buildings or cure diseases. Rhett and Brian were entrepreneurs while still in college. They were running a successfull internet business before Amazon.com was even a goofy idea someone once had. If you are sitting near Brian or Rhett when they see this, you'll certainly see milk shoot out of their nose:
That is a picture of a Western Loganberry Clearly Canadian bottle. (Yes it's that darn Loganberry thing again!) In college Brian and Rhett started a business out of their dorm room. You see the Coke machines and Snack machines were expensive. Also the selection stunk. So they solved the problem for a "modest" mark up. Then they found out that I liked Clearly Canadian Western Loganberry. They solved my problem. I suspect the mark up wasn't so "modest."
Many evenings I would get phone messages with only one word: "Loganberry!" Sadly, that was all it took. In moments I'd be knocking on their door, cash in hand, for some of that wonderful water. Looking back on it, I was an idiot. But in reality they were just very crafty. Not bad for an art major and an english major.
Eric is another on the list of the greatest people I know. One of my first introductions to Eric was in a philosophy class we had together. We were reading over each other's papers, and I noticed that Eric (who lived in Panama City Beach, Florida) used the word "dude" in his paper. Not once but a few times. Now I am no english major (Rhett is) but "dude" doesn't seem like a "college level" word.
Not only did "dude" work out for Eric's paper, Eric wound up being one of the top graduates from Mercer. He's just that great. The fact that Eric is an art major and again my first insinct was that society would wind up supporting him some day. But then you tack on his minor (major?) in Philosophy and I assure you, any conversation with Eric will stretch your mind. Eric and I on paper are probably exact opposites. But in reality we're so similar its almost funny. We both love teaching and have in fact we both have taught at Mercer. We both have a passion and thirst for knowledge.
Clint was always hard for me to "get a grasp on." He never seemed stressed, he never seemed to have to work for anything. Clint was everyone's friend and always eager to have fun. For the life of me I couldn't figure out how someone could glide through college as easily as he did while I was sweating and suffering on a daily basis. I think perhaps there was a bit of jealousy on my part.
And of course the reason all of this comes up today was a conversation I was having with Brian the other night on the phone. (No, the other Brian!)
I forgot how we got to the point in the conversation but Brian start quoting Stephen Hawking to me on the phone. Now I can handle a little Hawking now and then. I took a year of Physics in college and a year of Chemistry to boot. However, to have an artist quoting Hawking to me just sort of stripped the teeth off my mental gears. (You can view some of Brian's video blogs here.
For those that don't know, Stephen Hawking is the greatest physicist to ever live. Sadly most folks get hung up in the fact that he's been afflicted by ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease). They say if you lose one of your senses the others compensate. I believe that due to Hawking's loss of control of his body, his mind has compensated. In a weird was, ALS was probably a good thing.
Because ALS usually kills its victims in a matter of a decade or less, Hawking started to feel time pressure on him. So much in his head he needed to get out. So he has "written" a lot of material. But if you have ever tried to read his original stuff, it makes you head hurt. Frustrated by his inability to express himself to the common man, he backed up and wrote an astrophysics book for "the rest of us" called "A brief history of time." It was (and is) a wildly successful book, however it still hurts the brains of most who read it. So to have Brian (no the other one) quote Hawking to me seemed a bit surreal.
In high school many years ago, I took Latin as my 2 year language requirement. Why Latin? We I certainly didn't want to take Spanish as my brother dominated the Spanish department in my high school. At least with Latin there could be no comparisons. Especially when i knew I was going to stink at it.
My greatest accomplishment was learning to say "Semper ubi sub ubi." (Always wear underwear) But I did find a lot of fascinating facts about Romans. in particular they all strived to be multi faceted people. Lots of our latin phrases concerned "Warrior-poets" or "Farmer-poets" and of course there were "farmer warriors."
While I will never be a "warrior." I passed up on the military in favor of college and now Im too old to sign up anyway. I doubt I'll ever be a "farmer." I can barely manage to keep one potted Golden Pothos alive. The poet thing is up for debate. I have written poetry, but I do not know if I qualify as a "poet." In my opinion, if you haven't ever been paid for it, then you probably shouldn't claim to be one. I have always felt that it isn't being good at one thing that makes you great, it's being good at many things that makes you great.
I once heard someone say "A human being should know something about everything and everything about at least one thing." You always hear the phrase "A jack of all trades" but no one ever hears the second half: "A master of none." I hate having to say "I don't know." So to that end if I ever find something I do not know or understand I want to learn more about it. It's not so much a quest for greatness in my mind as it is my duty is a human. If I am going to keep using up oxygen I need to at least do something useful.
As you can see, I have grown up surrounded by greatness (by my standards) and that environment has caused me to try and explore areas and expand my abilities to hopefully reach "greatness" myself some day. I hope you can also now see why it is hard to leave Macon. When you have found an oasis of greatness, you just don't want to leave it. I hope I find greatness where I am going, because it would be a darn shame to give this all up for nothing.
Krystal Lovers get more in the sack!.

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# posted by JasonJ1052 @ 6:20 PM
Comments:
Hey Jason,
I tried to "reply" to your blog the other day, but I don't think it worked??????????????? (I had no idea what I was doing) So I'm doing it again this way.
What I said the other day was, if you decide to stop this blog, I will understand, but I will REALLY miss reading it every day and about ALL of your adventures! But now I want to say, if at all possible, KEEP IT GOING! You should write for a newspaper or magazine. Your writing is so interesting. And I am invested in you. Besides, you know I feel like I'm your second Mom!
So, we will be praying for you, Jason, in this new adventure. And hopefully, we'll be able to continue to read about you and what life has in store for you!
Jackie Largaespada
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : 9:17 PM
 
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