Archive | September, 2010

Shall we talk about the weather?

28 Sep

Not three days ago I was begging a resident of upstate New York to email me photos of her fall foilage. But now we’ve had legitimately crisp days right here in Atlanta, GA and the weather forecast confirms it’s not a fluke! Cancel my pathetic order!
Only – why is Weather.com being such a frail old lady about the change in seasons? I need to consider cold-related pain tomorrow, when the temperature peaks in the low eighties? I need to start preparing for SAD on sunny Saturday?

I know that we Southerners get super sensitive about snow and ice in the winter but we LIVE for the first full weekend of zero percent humidity. Everyone breaks out their wool blazers and favorite argyle items as soon as temps dip below 87° – it’s a fact! That’s why it’s so sad when inevitably a three-week humid heat wave comes in October and no one wants to put sensible cotton short-sleeved attire back on. Lots of moist people in sweater vests and Glen plaid dragging themselves through the dying strains of Atlanta summer – frankly, it’s just embarrassing for everyone.

Come abrasive February when your toes feel like they might break off like little chickpeas, you better remember how you insisted on wearing riding boots on a brilliantly sunny nearly-summer day! You remember that!

In other words, looks like tomorrow’s the perfect time to break out the old black tights and elbow-length gloves again!

Rich's Fall Hosiery Show, October 1950 (via GSU photographs special collections)

Previously: News you can use

Life after the 45

26 Sep

Y’all, we rode the #45 for the last time on Friday! I made my old pal from the 45 (no longer a resident of Atlanta) fly down for the event and get on at his same bus stop for the sake of consistency and nostalgia. It was the same as always  in the morning – Grady kids with backpacks in the seats next to them, looking at you like you are the hugest creep in the world if you are forced to sit next to them because there are no other available seats.

The 45 will always have a special place in my heart. When I didn’t want to be burdened by using three different parking garages throughout the day or being a sweaty mess from biking, the 45 was my first real MARTA experience, and I think it is probably the gentlest, easiest start for a MARTA beginner. The route was tree-lined and beautiful, most everyone on there was just going to or from their Midtown office jobs or school, the morning bus driver lived for his job, and I often ran into people I knew.

There weren’t the highs and lows of other bus routes that go by dialysis centers or Boulevard. The craziest thing I ever experienced on the 45 was just that there was a terrible odor one afternoon and the bus driver had to stop by Trader Joe’s and search the bus for the source of the smell, but no one could find it. That’s pretty low key.

MARTA still has an accidental homage to the route on its schedule page.

I will never forget you, my fellow 45 riders – older man with the running shoes, and younger guy with the WABE bag, and other guy with just brown hair, and lady with the paper bag, and woman with the mauve trench coat, and Grady High School students who sagged your neon skinny jeans so it looked like you pooped your pants, and cool urban mom with the giant stroller, and city planner for my old NPU, and the Jesus Greaser, and all the other riders who came and went from my life on the 45. Maybe we should all start a Facebook group and have an annual reunion where we rent a charter bus and ride it from the Candler Park station to Midtown station and back.

Update: Read Maria Saporta’s tribute to the 45, including some great history (that precedes 2007) of the route.

Previously: Transit happenstance

Buckhead Betties

22 Sep

This goes out to all the North Atlanta ladies who kept it real by wearing slacks, working 9-5s, driving cars, going out for drinks after work with the girls, and mastering sassy creative expressions. (And if you thought Young Blood invented the shop cat, think again! But they did probably invent the shop cat tattoo.)

Storefront (1942)

(1947)

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You light up my ‘Line!

21 Sep

Okay, the first BeltLine lantern parade was in what…June? I went, and then too much time passed and it seemed irrelevant to post about it a month after the fact – the internet moves so fast! BUT, on Saturday, October 2 the Krewe of the Grateful Gluttons et al will be holding another to close out Art on the BeltLine!!! YOU HAVE TO GO!!!

I mean, it was really truly one of the best things I’ve ever done/seen in Atlanta (and let’s not forget I went to the torch parade and, like, handball at the 1996 Olympics). And while there I took a million blurry photos on my phone, and here are some. You can’t see the people really – I think someone said there were 300?

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