I imagined
all of Georgia like the color of grass in the afternoon - a palette for
contemplation. And I imagined vidalia onion soup, stopping along lonely
roads for pickled tomatoes and steamed catfish. I had poured through cookbooks
of antebellum delicacies; intrigued by kale, collared greens and plantation
landscapes.
I
left Macon, in Central Georgia; pastures and pines; hungry for sweet potato
cakes and grits. Neon-colored billboards on the I-75 featured fresh pecans
and adult erotica superstores.
Somewhere
between Macon and Valdosta, I stopped off to get a bite to eat. The restaurants
were closed, so I dropped by the quik-mart. A set of jars with a yellow-green
liquid sat on a hotdog stand. Bottled inside were the grimy feet of pigs
- pickled pig's feet. A whole refrigerated display of Vanilla Coca cola,
Frit-o-lay chips, Nut'N'Butter, Squeeze-Cheese. There were some refrigerator
magnets and maps of Georgia. I was hungry, but I couldn't eat like this.
I picked up a package of Lunchables and shook it. I put it down, and left.
The
next morning, I woke in the Gator Motel and left my hotel fee under the
lamp, in dollar bills. Across the street at the market, I relented to
three packages of Lunchables, several gallons of water, and a beer.
"It's
Sunday," the clerk said. "No beer on Sunday."
I
found that ridiculous. A twenty-four ounce of Pabst is the perfect nightcap
after long hours on the swamp. Eyes peered at me from every corner of
the market, as if I had done something wrong. An Atlanta woman heard the
eCross Countryhange and said, "Ain't from Jawjuh are ya?" I knew she had
faked her accent; the sounds of Atlanta mimic the sound of America.
I
told her that I thought this was the most ridiculous thing I have ever
heard. She told me her life story. We parted ways.
There
is nothing in the bible that says you shouldn't have a beer on Sunday.
Jesus worshipped with wine. Beer was around for thousands of years before
Jesus. A Sumerian goddess with a beautiful name, Ninkasi, was even named
the goddess of beer.
At
the time, Egypt was the major exporter of beer; and it flowed all through
the Mediterranean. Some people believe that when the Bible refers to Jesus'
praises of wine, he is actually referring to beer. At the time, grains
were the dominant crop of the Mediterranean, not grapes. And grapes were
the luxury of the Roman elite. Jesus' friends were the commoners, and
they would naturally have drunk beer.
The
correct Aramaic to English translation from the earliest bibles for the
phrase 'turned water into wine', after all, is actually '...water into
strong drink.' The bible also refers to 'wine and strong drink.' Were
we to take the bible literally, we may imply that Jesus' turning water
into a strong drink implied he was a brewmeister.
Hooded pitcher plants near the Okefenokee
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