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Two hundred fifty miles for a hamburger and a cannonball
Wednesday, November 30, 2011 at 02:44PM 
To continue the saga of our recent Peach State peregrinations, on Friday evening TG, Erica, and I deliberated for some time over where to dine out.
We'd dined in the night before, quite spectacularly I might add.
(If you want the recipe for the delicious and ridiculously easy chicken parmesan we made, shoot me an email.)
Watching Guy Fieri roll out a year or so ago on the Food Network staple Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives (or Triple D as its fans say), I learned of a venerable Atlanta restaurant called The Colonnade.
I lived in Atlanta and never heard of the joint but they praised it so highly on DDD that I felt compelled to pay them my custom should the opportunity ever present itself.
So it was that, relaxing on Erica's sofa on Friday afternoon, I began doing some Internet research.
More to the point, I read several reviews of The Colonnade.
And the more I read, the nervouser I got, especially when I Google-Earthed its location and found it to be in a rather, ah, shall we say seedier location than I'd anticipated.
Plus which, there were several references to tired, outdated decor, to include much-stained carpeting, that put me off my feed.
I fear I shall never visit The Colonnade but I'm okay with it.
More dining-specific dithering ensued. Mammy's Shanty is long gone. One could always resort to Mary Mac's Tea Room but at that moment it struck me as such a bourgeois touristy choice.
I was not in the mood for pot likker anyway. But it's possible I made a mistake. We shall never know.
Because we finally settled on Houston's, a restaurant about which Erica had heard much from a friend.
It's near where Lenox Road intersects with Peachtree, in the immediate vicinity of Lenox Square and Phipps Plaza, two major Atlanta shopping destinations.
In the summer of '77 I worked at Pix Shoes, across the street from Lenox Square, to which I rode the bus each morning and ate crispy bacon, two eggs over medium, hash browns, hot buttered grits, and a jelly biscuit while occupying a booth at Walgreens, working the Jumble and slurping coffee as I munched, before heading over the way to sell jeweled sandals to blue-haired ladies.
Trivia: I was arranging size-ten soles in their cardboard coffins on a hot August afternoon when it was announced that Elvis had died.
We set out for Atlanta, passing Truett's along the way, where we ate the next night. Now as I done already tol' y'all, that was a winner. You basically cannot go wrong unless you're allergic to simple goodness.
At this point I could write ten paragraphs about how we became a trifle enmeshed in the fierce snarl of traffic that crawls like a million-head herd of beef critter over metropolitan Atlanta on any given evening, but in this case kicked up by it being a Friday and the Friday before Thanksgiving.
Then we sailed right past Houston's because it is a restaurant with the darkest, most ill-lit signage I believe I have ever seen. Like the Isla de Muerta, it can only be found by those who already know where it is.
Houston's, we have a problem.
And yes, we have eyes and yes, we had the address and certainly we can count and no, we do not have GPS.
What we have in lieu of GPS is TG. Step off.
Suffice it to say, a full ninety minutes after we left Erica's cozy cottage in McDonough, we were giving our names to the hostess at Houston's, we no longer have a problem because at last we found you.
Houston's is my kind of place. Dimly lit inside (just like outside), all exposed brick, a merry fire in the fireplace, lots of people, the buzz of happy diners, gleeful anticipation of a solid menu and splendid service.
Now this next part may not be appreciated by some but it fairly put the starch back in my somewhat-lagging spirits (I was hungry and the trek there had been arduous).
There was nowhere to sit down while we waited, so Erica and I were leaning against some of that gorgeous exposed brick. I moved aside for a moment and that's when Erica saw it.
It was a plaque proclaiming that the brick from which Houston's was built is recycled from Atlanta's once-great Loew's Grand Theater, which was gutted by fire in 1978.
That's where Gone With The Wind premiered on December 15, 1939.
So I stared at that brick and I thought, maybe Clark Gable or Vivien Leigh or Olivia DeHavilland or Laurence Olivier or Margaret Mitchell herself (Author! Author!) brushed up against this brick. Maybe one of them breathed on it. And I was just leaning against it.
And I was gobsmacked by that and forgot my hunger and forgot to even talk for about twenty-five seconds.
That may be a record.
Then we were seated and I was attempting to decide between a Thai Noodle Steak Salad and the Hickory Burger which featured Canadian Bacon, and I implored the waiter for help, and that's when he said it.
And I quote:
"That salad is good but we have the best burgers in town."
The best burgers in town? All of town? The entire town of Atlanta, Georgia?
Now, you may not know this about me but if I am not a bona fide burger aficionado, I am within a skinny pickle chip of being one.
My mouth began watering and I ordered the Hickory Burger. Erica got the same thing and TG got a burger too. As the waiter faded away we all sat back, sipped our soft drinks, and smiled smugly at one another.
At a mere fourteen dollars apiece we were about to savor the best burgers in Atlanta.
Except.
The burgers came and they were good. Earnestly good. But the best? Huh-uh, nope, not. Not even. Negative.
I've had a better burger at Five Guys.
But it was fun. The bricks were from the Loew's Grand. Don't forget that part. Ambience counts big.
Four hours after we'd left Erica's place, we got back to McDonough. Four hours for a good (but not great) fourteen-dollar hamburger accompanied by shoestring fries.
The view of Atlanta by night was breathtaking. Even with the eighty-five-million taillights.
Next day we set out for Thomaston, Georgia, an hour's drive south. We were going there because Erica Jean had done some Internet research of her own and determined that Thomaston is well known for its Mayberry-like atmosphere and the existence of no fewer than thirteen covered bridges that dot the surrounding countryside like wooden treasures.
Except.
When we got to Thomaston (seat of Upson County), there was nothing there.
I doubt we saw five human beings. Maybe one greasy spoon was open. The charm has departed.
TG talked to a few folks and was told there was exactly one covered bridge, ten miles and approximately fifty-nine million pine trees outside of town.
Except, one helpful person pointed that-a-way and the other helpful person pointed the other way.
And then there were no more people. Only a stately old courthouse already decked out for Christmas, many magnolia trees waxing emerald green against an overcast sky, and a veritable outdoor museum of war monuments.
And the cannonball.
Which I will have you know, purports -- engraved in stone, no less -- to be the first cannonball fired at Fort Sumter, Charleston Harbor, South Carolina, to begin the War Between the States on April 12, 1861.
Not the second cannonball, or the third. Not a relic of the first volley.
The first cannonball fired.
And yes, I touched it.
So~! Shall we recap?
Within 24 hours we drove two hundred fifty miles for a hamburger and a cannonball.
Of course, it was supposed to be the best hamburger and it was said to be the first cannonball.
When I told TG about the cannonball he smirked, pointed heavenward, and began chanting: We're Number One! We're Number One!
Yankee.
Meanwhile our cruise director, when she wasn't prancing gracefully around the Upson County Courthouse sipping her Beacon Drive-In tea poured over a cup of ice she'd paid a quarter for at the Ingles supermarket on the outskirts of town, was hanging her head in shame at the decidedly boring turn of events.
My advice to her: When you have out-of-town guests coming to visit, first think of taking them to places close to home. Like in her case, the McDonough town square, or nearby Heritage Park. Which I've heard of but never yet actually seen.
I'll see it next time.
If there's nothing close to home, ask the locals to tell you about worthwhile daytrip excursions.
Oh. Lest I forget, there was the one covered bridge.
Just the one! And we did see it.
More on that subject later this week.
Merry Christmas! Happy December!
