Friday - Fatback Almanac and Atlanta

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Yesterday we went to the big city of Atlanta. The purpose of our trip was to find the parking lot that jurors can park free while on the Federal Jury – which is coming up for me.

That morning our computers could not get on-line. We left them that way.

It was pouring down rain all day so it wasn’t the best conditions to go for a ride to Atlanta but I’m glad we did. The parking lot wasn’t hard to find, according to their directions and it is my old stomping grounds – the parking lot was only one or two blocks from my old work place, the Postal Federal Annex.



Then, afterwards, content, knowing I will know my way around we drove down Peachtree Street which is always interesting. There is always something new – a new building, new big sign or something. This time we saw a new sight: a big Arc(h) de Triumph in the Peachtree Center area. It had Carnegie’s name on it. I suppose that is the same steel industrialist Carnegie who was ruthless in business but then gave away fortunes building libraries and other things the public will remember his name for.

On up Peachtree at 12th Street was a huge Egyptian figure – part human and part animal – the kind of creature that is buried with the elite to protect them – was looming and advertising the upcoming King Tut exhibit that will be at the Atlanta Civic Center.



Then we got on Piedmont Road at Piedmont Park and stopped at Fat Matt's Rib Shack for lunch. We have heard a lot about this place – how it was one of the best barbecue places in Atlanta and all. I got to say, it had its own style… good blues music on the speakers. But we were unimpressed with the bbq sandwiches – which looked more like a sloppy Joe or a Manwich. However, the ribs looked good I saw other people eating. And it was crowded. After we got our food the lined piled up out the door. This is something that happens regularly with us – we walk into a place and walk right up and get waited on and minutes afterwards the line goes out the door.



To have such a big lunch crowd they must be doing something right.

The name Fat Matt's Rib Shack reminded me of a name I considered for my blog: FATBACK’S ALMANAC.


Unique looking church across from Fat Matt's.

We rode on down Piedmont. A place we used to go when we were dating was a place called The Great Southeastern Music Hall where we seen several good shows – such as Steve Martin (before he was white headed) – Joan Baez’s sister Mimi Farini (or something like that), and others that either made a name for themselves or didn’t.

There were so many new buildings we could not figure out exactly where the Great Southeastern Music Hall was… we knew it was in Broadview Plaza – but it looked like it has been eaten up by big buildings.

I remember across the street from Broadview Plaza was a Shoney’s. Next door was a closed Sinclair Station. At the time I worked for Sinclair. I remember a little short guy with the last name Partain, a gas truck driver, was sent out to that closed station to pump the gas out of the underground tank. He was such a humble little polite guy… always nice and apologetic and yielding. That morning, next door, some of the breakfast diners at Shoney’s saw Partain run across the parking lot in flames.

Something went wrong.

Partain probably died, burnt to a crisp before he hit the ground from running. I hope he died or lost conscious before he even got running good.

We rode down West Paces Ferry Road. We were looking for the long driveway that has dogwood trees lined up on each side and in the spring time it is beautiful…but we couldn’t find it – I wonder if that yard and house was bulldozed to make way for a bigger house or houses or what?

postcard of the missing dogwood-line driveway


By the way, the governor’s mansion is on West Paces Ferry Road and many other huge mansions. I noticed several Vote for Saxy Chambliss signs on that road, who claims to be a fighter for the middle class… hhmmfff!

We did some shopping and then back home in the afternoon. The computer on-line was still down. I called Bell South’s help desk. A very patient Indian lady walked me through everything and we got the line back up by reconfiguring the modem. However, to do it, we had to by-pass the router. She gave me the 1-800 number of the router’s help desk. I called them and ended up talking to a very excitable shrill sounding Pilipino lady who was very good and knowledgeable. Not only did she walk us through reconfiguring the router so it would work she also had us pull out our old laptop which we haven’t used in years because we could not get it to get it to jive to our jive and walked us through it. I think she spent over two hours with both us on the line.

It was a well spent day.