To Athens Town

Wednesday, March 19

Leaving Cuthbert for Athens.

We arrived in Athens at about 2:00pm, a little late due to a conversation I had to have with a Madison police officer about 22 miles short of Athens. He insulted me when he asked if my car was a Camaro or a Mustang, then had the gaul to give me a ticket for doing 65 in a 45 mph zone. It was a divided highway full of traffic and he just picked me out. And yes, the radar detector was working. It just didn’t go off soon enough. However, I will not allow that to spoil my time in Athens, home of the University of Georgia Bulldogs. Traffic in Athens is horrendous. It has grown from 35,00 when I was in school here to 120,000 but the downtown section where the hotel is has changed very little and is extremely crowded. We will attempt to undertake a driving tour of the campus, perhaps after dinner, when the traffic may have died down a bit. Tomorrow we head to Baldwin, about 60 miles north of Athens for a visit and lunch with Gwen, my cousin and Doug’s sister. More later.

We took a driving tour of the campus this afternoon. Having graduated in 1967, I recognized very little. Instead of grassy park-like areas between the old building, were many new (since 1967) buildings. Streets were no longer in the same places or were gone completely. New streets led us through the new buildings. Many of the original buildings downtown are still there but the businesses which inhabit them are all different. Students swarmed across the landscape like ants. It was all go, go, go! I didn't take any pictures because I would rather remember the campus as it looked 58 years ago when I was young and the Varsity eatery was still in Athens.