Tuesday, January 8, 2013

At Lanta

Ah.

Atlanta.

Stuck out here seven miles north of downtown in Hotel Land.

Up today at 3:19am waaaaaay tooooo early to catch a 6am plane.

Here's a name for you:

Emma Mae Suggs Calhoun

Gleaned from a bar conversation with a man (progenitor of Miss Georgia 2006) who claimed to have sold more hotels than anyone on the planet. Emma Mae was his great-grandmother, and if I ever become a Southern Novelist she will be my main character:

Emma Mae Suggs Calhoun.
Damn.
Fantastic.

But from the looks of it, I might as well just work her into a poem
because me + southern fiction ≠ anything.

The bellboy (or bellman, as it happened), wanted to know
if we were pleased with the results of our Washington state election.
Tee hee! He giggled as he left.

The hotel salesman told us that he came from generations of southern farmers
who always had a side crop of cannabis, for "spending money".

The farther away from home one goes, the smaller the world becomes.

3 comments:

  1. Emma Mae Suggs Calhoun. Now THAT's a name. The south is really quite a different world than the one I grew up in. My experiences in the south being limited to TN and NC....but oh what cultural differences there.

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  2. My grandmother's name was Ida Mae, and she was from the Mississippi Delta.

    (and I grew up in Atlanta)

    ReplyDelete
  3. I've heard of Ellie Mae Clampett (?), but Emma Mae Calhoun....

    ReplyDelete