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  • The Fiery Chasm

    Oh, Augusta. How do I love thee?

    Well, the truth is, I don't. You're a muddled, unattractive town that appears to have been left for dead after the CSA surrendered. May I live a thousand years and never see another town like you.

    Why the hate? Well, today I took a wrong turn. Actually, it should have been the right turn. However, a 30-minute trip home ended up taking an hour and a half and I ended up in South Carolina before I could come close to figuring out what street I was on.

    I turned down Milledgeville and then turned neither left nor right for quite some time, but somehow ended up not on Milledgeville but on MLK Blvd, James Brown Blvd, and Twiggs Street. Turning left onto a side street brought me to another Twiggs Street. Turning right onto a spur brought me to a third Twiggs street. Turning left off that Twiggs Street brought me to Laney-Walker, which took me to James Brown and then all of a sudden I was crossing the Savannah River and there was South Carolina.

    Hardly encouraging. Worse, I drove through neighborhoods that reminded me of Patterson Avenue in south Baltimore. How can the town spend so much money on so little ($7000 on a plaque to commemorate James Brown, to be placed at the "civic center") and leave these wretched hovels in their present state? I drove by a legless man in a wheelchair that looked like it was held together by duct tape. Sweet baby Jesus, it's nearly enough to turn me into a socialist!

    Even "downtown" looks a bit like crap. There are small pockets of structural rehab, but for the love of all you hold dear, do not--I repeat, do not--wander off that main strip or you're right back into slumville. How sad and pathetic.

    It's all just so damned depressing.

    4 comments:

    keith said...

    GPS....heard of it?

    Soo Mi said...

    See the post from April 10, 2008. It doesn't explain why I don't like those machines, but it's pretty funny.

    I don't own a GPS because my experiences with them are all bad. For example:

    1. Mister's sister takes me to WallyWorld while we're in TN. Her GPS takes us an hour and a half to get there. My map looked like the store was much, much closer than that. We use my map to get home, and it took about 20 minutes.

    2. Same trip, about 4 times the GPS tried to convince us to take a wrong turn. Specifically, to turn left into a wall in a place where there is no road at all, and once to turn right off a winding mountain-cabin-access path, which would have dropped us down the side of the mountain.

    Not really my thing, the GPS. I adore maps and normally have them all over my house. I'd wallpaper a room with them, if I could keep me from writing on them, which I can't.

    It's like me and books. I love books, I like to hold them while I'm reading. I just can't get into e-books and e-readers. It's not the same story for me.

    Call me old-skool, call me retarded, that's just the way I am. :P

    And no, I did not in fact consult a map other than the google prior to setting out. Also no, I did not print out that map.

    Anonymous said...

    I'm a map guy aka retard, or I ask the UPS guy or guyett.
    Are you close to Clemson?
    Lots of good Ag Info there.
    Maybe FREE stuff to do.

    Bob

    Soo Mi said...

    Not too close to Clemson. Closer to USC at Aiken. Good ag program there. And I've got an "in"--we play trivia with the head librarian at the college.