Georgia on our Minds

February 14, 2011

We left Jason and Jamie’s almost a month ago, and are hopefully finishing up winter in Georgia. There has been a lot of rain, and more cold than you can imagine when you think of the Carolinas and Georgia. We spent two weeks in Statesboro, GA, home of the Georgia Southern Screaming Eagles, and now we are about 20 miles southwest of Statesboro outside the little town of Metter. “Everything’s Better in Metter.”

Statesboro is a lively college town, with a lot more tattoo parlors and biker bars than would seem likely in a southern, upscale college locale. The freebie newspaper not only lists arrests of the week, but runs the mug shots! And they aren’t all black!

This whole area of mid eastern Georgia is still suffering economically. Selling ads is tough. This is an area where snowbirds come to spend October through April, and it appears a lot of them didn’t come this year.

For some reason, my blood sugar numbers spiked while in Statesboro, and I was turned away by five internal medicine clinics. Five! The urgent care center couldn’t treat me for diabetes, but really went the extra mile to find a doctor who would. They also challenged a couple of clinics who maintained they didn’t take our insurance; turns out they don’t want to treat a patient they can’t follow up on. The clinic I finally saw ran all the appropriate tests and gave me a prescription for a bigger dose of the insulin resistance med I take and my numbers are almost back to normal. Life on the road is a lot more fun if you don’t have any health issues.

Here in Metter, we are surrounded by cotton fields. Hope we are still in the area when they plant. There are three cotton gins in the area. Seems like I read somewhere that the cotton producers offshore have been impacted by floods or some other natural disaster and the price of cotton is going to go up. Maybe there will be more cotton planted in the south.

Georgia has initiated legislation to stop illegal immigrants working in the state. I don’t know why this came up, but it has riled a lot of farmers who are dependent on migrant workers. Peaches, pecans and onions (Vidalia is one county over) are labor intensive crops.

We are back in the land of geechees and hoochees, catfish and sweet tea and biscuits. Hoooooeeeee. Today we had lunch at a very typical southern buffet. The chicken is cut so you can’t get too much white meat no matter which piece you choose. Dave had to ask what the “potato” dish was, even after he ate it. It was mashed red potatoes, alright, but it had so much bacon grease in it the potato taste was gone. We passed on the gizzards and grits. On the other hand, down the street at a lunch counter, Dave had the best chicken salad sandwich of his life! It’s made with cranberries!

One more week here and we move to Skidaway Island State Park on the edge of Savannah. We hope to meet our Bluebird friends, Suska and Lou there and as always, look for the painted bunting.       Love to all,     Sam