i.
My son is upset with me. I can’t win. When I first wanted to go to the library, he complained. Now, when I’m ready to leave, he doesn’t want to go anywhere.
“Dad, I want to play with my friends.”
Our day is just starting. We’re just over 100 miles into our 650-mile journey. He has his new tablet, but it doesn’t compare to goofing off with other kids in the children’s section of the library.
“Okay. Ten more minutes.”
Part museum, part community center, part computer lab, I love visiting central library branches. The smell of their aged books always comforts me. The demure beeps of patrons checking out their selections more welcome than the aggressive chimes and chortles of supermarket self-checkouts. Little fingers pawing at well-loved toys before larger hands take them away for another child to love on them some more.
It never takes much convincing to get me to stay in a library. As much as I would love to get back on the road, indulging him allows me to indulge as well.
the blazing sun the asphalt a flat top ready for eggs
ii.
I have passed by Augusta, GA, on multiple occasions without sparing it much thought. It is not as though I knew much about the place. Not that I care about golf, but I was aware of the town’s special golf tournament. Then there was this bit of civil rights era history that I mistakenly attributed to Augusta instead of Albany, GA, so I knew even less about the place than I thought. I decided to stop here to visit Book Tavern, which is one of the state’s best bookstores according to some blogpost. That was all the excuse I required, but not all the information.
Like Savannah, Augusta was established by James Ogelthorpe, was a former state capital, and sits along the Savannah River. It has a major port, an Army base, and a minor league baseball team, just like Savannah. Its city center also reminds me a lot of Macon, Georgia, and several other mid-sized Georgia towns. If you dropped me on either of their main streets, I would be hard pressed to know where I am.
My eyes untrained sorrel is just clover with pink blossoms
iii.
When I exited I-20 in Augusta, I saw a sign directing me to August National Golf Club. I rolled my eyes at it before turning into the Waffle House parking lot.
I have seen Augusta National Golf Club on television before, but I had no desire to visit it. I do not play golf, nor do I watch golf on television. Televised golf tournaments felt like the penance you paid for the joy of Saturday morning cartoons and Saturday Night Live sketches. It was Newton’s Third Law of Motion applied to entertainment, an equal and opposite reaction.
It compelled you to do something else with your day. As far as I was concerned, it marked the end of the broadcast day until sundown. Announcers at the opening of a tournament worked like the old sign-off sequences and were similarly followed by white noise.
I remember when Tiger Woods won the Masters there when I was in the fifth grade. It felt like a big deal then. There was a front page photograph of him putting on his very own green blazer, green as the fairway. It was supposed to mark a sea change for the sport, and maybe it did one for him. He went on to win the Masters so many more times that his wins started feeling less like a feat and more like a routine. Once his infidelity tarnished the polished image of the Ryder Cup champion, I cared even less about golf and the Augusta National Golf Club.
When I told my friends about my visit to Augusta, several of them ask me about Augusta National with genuine curiosity.
“Like I could give a shit,” I said.
rabbit ears everyone snowblind with these drifts
iv.
The bell at Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church tolled eleven times as we departed the Augusta-Richmond County Public Library. We drive down James Brown Boulevard to say a fond farewell to the mural of Soul Brother Number One. The Godfather of Soul moved to the city of Augusta when he was about five years old, the same age my son is now. I saw Get On Up, but I didn’t remember his roots were here. I might have recalled that trivia if I had read RJ Smith’s biography The One, but I won’t forget now.
We crossed the Savannah River into South Carolina over the Jefferson Davis Memorial Bridge. Considering it now, it is so much more confounding why US 1 throughout much of the South bears the name of the first president of the Confederate States of America with instead of the first president of the United States of America. I know the history of the Lost Cause mythologizing that gripped the nation in the early 20th century. I also appreciate that it was in part a response to the designation of the Lincoln Highway, although that makes it feel more gauche to me. Though some believe this is a fitting honor, the easy answer was right there the whole time.
George Washington’s Mount Vernon residence is but a stone’s throw from US 1 in Alexandria, Virginia. Jefferson Davis might have resided in Richmond during the Civil War, but he is from Mississippi, and US 1 doesn’t go through there. While I’m certain the notion of a “King’s Road” would be anathema to George Washington, I don’t think he would prefer we grant the honor to a traitor.
strawberry moon dropped in the river without ripples