Deli Junction, the mountains, and Doctorow

I'm behind.

I was gonna post about Wingate and Parrott and I practically getting kicked out of Deli Junction in hoppin' Ellijay, but then I lost my muse or should I say, I forgot what we said because now that was a long time ago. I will, however, post some pictures.

I will also tell you that we giggled, got stared at, and ate pie -- which Parrott says, "It isn't as good as it used to be when it was sold at that other place....".

I thought it was good, but, of course, I didn't get to eat it at that other place.

*shrugs*

BTW: Deli Junction has a bell that if you have good food, good times, and good service, or any combination of the three, you ring. When we left, Wingate pulled down on it like she was at a carnival and trying to win a stuff animal. The whole place looked up from what they were doing; I scooted out because I didn't wish to spend the night in the Ellijay jail with those two.

Geez. They were out of control.

Wait. If I had to spend the night in jail with someone, those two wouldn't be bad. Bad would be Zaid or Chris.





Next.

David and I were in the mountains this past weekend. It was past the peak of color, but it didn't matter, the leaves still shone in gloriously.

"The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows his handiwork ...."










On Halloween night while we were in the mountains, David and I went to Momma G's, a local pizza place, and all of the waiters and waitresses were dressed up for Halloween. Some of the costumes were a little hard to discern exactly what they were supposed to be -- the hostess was a flapper, the bartender was Link from Mod Squad, and our waitress was ... well, I think a French maid.

David: French maid gone wide.

He's hyper-critical sometimes. The guy who made the pizza had a mask on the back of his head; I wasn't sure what that was either....

As we exited the restaurant, we looked up on one of the east mountains, and there is a beautiful cross, lighted, that shone out at us -- it must be huge --- we drove to see if we could get closer, and we could, but it was one of those drives where it moved -- first, it was in front of us, then to the side, then to the back of us -- we finally gave up --

Darn those curvy mountain roads. Halloween night was rainy and foggy, and the look of that cross up high like that -- made it appear to be floating in the air.

On our way to look at it, we passed the Clayton Halloween Carnival.

Me: You wanna stop?
David: I'd rather go to Wal-mart on Christmas eve.

I took that as a No.
Pretty firm no.

Next.

I caught up on some more podcasts ....

Doctorow talked about his book Homer and Langley, a ficitonal story based on the Collyer brothers who lived for fifty years in isolation in their Central Park home in NY. They died in 1947. When their apartment was opened by officials to take the bodies out, they found it was piled high with junk -- including a Ford chassis. Apparently, thousands of people drove by the house as well as passed in front of it in order to gawk..... as the curious, the living spectators wanted to see how it could be that two men could live like that.... What could be more terrible than, according to Doctorow, "being turned into a mythical joke?"

Doctorow said that "Americans are the champions of collecting stuff."

The Collyer house was a museum of American civilization.

Doctorow takes the point of view of Homer, who begins the novel with..."I am Homer, the blind brother."

Doctorow also talked about the importance of opening lines in novels. It made me think of some of the ones that I taught:

1. Call me, Ishmael.

2. In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since. "Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone," he told me, "just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had."

3. A throng of bearded men, in sad colored garments and gray, steepled crowned hats, intermixed with women, some wearing hoods, and others bareheaded, was assembled in front of wooden edifice, the door of which was heavily timbered with oak and studded with iron spikes.

4. You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter.

5. If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.

6. In the late summer of that year we lived in a house in a village that looked across the river and the plain to the mountains.

See how you do -- well, if you got nothing to do, that is...

Doctorow said that first lines were like the acorn of which the oak grows... do we remember first lines of books? I apparently do, but then I taught them....

That's all I got....

for now...

*inserts dancin' banana*