Some Other Time

Photo by me, November 2024.

 

After wandering through an antique show in Atlanta on Saturday for what seemed like hours and not buying anything, we drifted out to Athens and were glad to be away from the crowds. We listened to the Lemonheads album Car Button Cloth as our soundtrack and bummed around.

The other half said that he would be happy to live in the country, "as long as we had a pool."

 

I was a little surprised he said it, but not entirely. Our house is sort of in the middle ground between Atlanta and Athens, but both us would be okay living closer to Athens than to the other. The landscape has not been entirely chewed up and spit out as exurbs yet between the two cities and there is still some countryside left for pools and happiness. Since leaving Atlanta over three years ago, our lives have gravitated more and more toward to Athens.

We stopped in a bookstore. In the entrance was a table loaded down with the new biography of R.E.M., The Name of This Band is R.E.M.. This is Athens after all and I should have not been surprised, but I did not know there was a new biography on the band. I was intrigued despite the terrible title. They are my all-time favorite band, but is another book about them really needed? Don't we know everything already and they retired long ago. I did like the orange cover. I flipped through it, placed it back on the table and went to look at photography and art books. I'll read it some other time.

Photo by me, November 2024.

It was either the R.E.M. influence or the craving for fried chicken that put us outside Weaver D's. It was closed early and the craving was denied. The last two times we have been there they were closed early. There was nothing fine about that and the disappointment was automatic. The place has always been a little strange and having irregular hours is an odd way to run a business, but they do have good fried chicken. The whole thing is very Athens - strange and somehow excusable. 

Photo by me, November 2024.

The college students went to the bars in shorts. The Dawgs were playing in Mississippi somewhere and that I was all I cared to know.  It was another climate change November day with temperatures in the middle seventies. Some other time it might get cold again, but in Athens everything operates on its own time and may that never change.