Wed Jul 13, 2005
YES VIRGINIA
THERE IS CULTURE
in downtown Macon
Part One
THERE IS CULTURE
in downtown Macon
Part One
‘TIS SUMMER AND THE DARKNESS IS GRAY: Macon in midsummer. Political movement slows to a trickle. Conversation turns to the weather…heat. humidity, and, more recently, hurricanes.
To be sure Hizzoner, Gadabout Ellis, is junketing in far-off Ghana, bringing the wisdom and experience of his administration to the Dark Continent. The City Council has just voted to increase fees, levying them upon the vulnerable small business community. No outcry from the Chamber of Commerce, of course, those guys never want to rock the civic boat. And a do-nothing school board is fairly salivating over the prospect of imposing its very own special sales tax. Taxation with representation is tyranny, isn’t it? Finally Recall Ellis is rasping, “Once more into the breach,” striving to resurrect its dimming hopes with a third round of tilting with the windmills of racially tainted politics.
We can snooze the summer away, folks, waking up long enough to witness Dennis or the next named storm come our way. School starts in a month and Labor Day lurks just around the corner.
So let’s talk culture. Culture as it is found in beautiful downtown Macon: the real deal often maligned and generally under-appreciated.
Yes. It’s there. Most definitely. Hard to find sometimes. But there.
I have spent much of the summer, often in disguise, probing corners of the inner city to find this elusive something. Looked everywhere, poked around like a thief in the daylight, peering into windows, dumpster diving where necessary, prying.
OK…this brings up an important question… just what is culture, anyway? ‘Culture’ is whatever this writer says it is. Sorry. To get involved in an argument at this point would be counterproductive, a little like an average Macon City Council meeting. Culture defies exact definition; it is more a sense, a feeling, a taste, a tangy sensation that appeals to the esthetic, or the ironic, maybe the purely whimsical. It is very subjective. One man’s culture is another’s Redneck Games.
One principle followed throughout our research is the concept of “Park and Walk”. I love strolling through the Downtown, sometimes alone, sometimes with old friends drawn inexplicably to our little miasmic corner of Southern paradise. The whole idea is to ‘come on down’ not to a specific destination, perhaps (except, maybe, a court appearance or to conduct business at the Poplar Street Zoo, AKA City Hall), but to enter the urban matrix itself assured there is lots to do and plenty to see at any time of the day or night. Park and walk! Explore and enjoy.
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