The Nation's Pulse: Circling Atlanta
Gold, Victor
"The Nation's Pulse: Circling Atlanta" An Olympic city only General Sherman could love....
...a roadshow troupe was in town for a warmed-over Broadway musical...
...Resent its supercilious attitude toward its Southern neighbors...
...Still, when the boys finished, there were questions the IOC wanted answered...
...Don't throw us in with those rednecks, they insist...
...the place to be for the young and restless...
...And so it does, as long as we understand area to include such outlying Atlanta suburbs as Charlotte, North Carolina, and Anniston, Alabama...
...Don't get carried away...
...Y'all know what a New Southerner is: Lester Maddox in discount-mall Guccis...
...I.* 63 The American Spectator - August 1996...
...Everything flying south of Baltimore, military or civilian, had to go through Atlanta...
...Whoa...
...We're the New South...
...To be fair, the trip wasn't a total washout...
...What Pierre de Coubertin conceived as a lucrefree sports festival to inspire world youth has been transmogrified into a money machine that grinds out billions in TV revenue, endorsements, and other ancillary profits for all concerned-including "Dream Team" basketball pros and Gold Medal winners who end up on Wheaties boxes wearing Nike shoes...
...It was a dazzler...
...I believe them...
...A Bubba breakfast of canned juice, charred bacon, storage eggs, taste-free grits, and dishrag coffee comes to ten dollars, tip not included, anywhere inside a five-mile radius of the Olympic village...
...Going to Atlanta in search of the authentic South is like traveling to Anaheim in search of the Old West...
...Even synchronized swimming might do...
...Before World War II, right up to the premiere of Gone with the Wind, Atlanta 44 Going to Atlanta in search of the authentic South is like traveling to Anaheim in search of the Old West...
...We ran into several eateries that surpassed anything in or around Fort Jackson, including Leb's, a way-station deli for Miami-bound travelers that served a passable strawberry cheesecake, and the Varsity drive-in (Home of the World's Best Chili Dog...
...By July, 1996, the Atlanta area will have more than enough guest rooms to accommodate Olympic visitors...
...Travel," was baffled when the International Olympic Committee picked Atlanta as host for this year's Olympics...
...Don't be ridiculous...
...Take a deep breath, chat with the stewardess, have another deca f, think it over...
...I'll miss my connection and, not for the first time, have to lay over in Atlanta...
...Unfortunately, those were the only items resonant of urban high-life I was able to find in thirty-six sleepless hours...
...Haven't had a chili dog in years...
...Will Atlanta's climate pose any prob lems...
...Hosting an Olympics these days is a financial bonanza undreamed of when the modern Games began a hundred years ago...
...Atlantans in fact go out of their way to claim they're not related to the riffraff living in Alabama, by Victor Gold Mississippi, or, for that matter, the rest of Georgia...
...The Klan no longer gathered at Stone Mountain on weekends, but urban highlife was still more resonant of Newark than New York...
...When it made its bid for this one, it not only had tradition on its side, but climate, hotel space, fine restaurants, and comparatively safe streets...
...Too long a wait...
...Track, field, archery...
...Saved by the bell...
...Nothing special...
...You mean, other than the international flapjack contest sponsored by IHOP...
...Sales hype isn't just a means to an end there...
...But wait...
...Pity the Athens Chamber of Commerce, taking on that crowd...
...Besides, nothing about Atlanta comes cheap these days: • Hotel rooms, with or without views of Klan rallies at Stone Mountain, price out at figures exceeding even the $5oo-pernight tab extorted from visitors to the 1992 Barcelona games...
...Arthur Frommer, called by some "Mr...
...Our captain speaking: Weather front's headed in, we're re-routed to Birmingham...
...Are put off by its relentless boosterism, its nouveau swagger...
...There was a roadshow troupe working Oklahoma at a downtown theater and a wall poster told me of Tex Beneke's appearance on the Georgia Tech campus the following week...
...N of long after the IOC awarded the '96 Olympics to Atlanta, the New York Times ran a story calling the city "a place that has been promoting itself nonstop since General Sherman burned it in 1864...
...Big-time entertainment...
...Just floor the accelerator on a'48 Studebaker, keep a sharp eye out for state troopers, and head west for the bright lights...
...Understand, these are no passing cheap shots...
...Out of reach for an Army sergeant on a weekend pass, but if there was a Southern version only a five-hour drive away, my Army buddies and I were all for it...
...Just to say I've been there...
...Glad you asked...
...Count to ten, twenty, maybe a hundred...
...No problem, said Billy Payne, head of the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games...
...And hype...
...Go into Atlanta...
...Torches on the edge of town, by Stone Mountain...
...What's that...
...Let's see now, we land in Birmingham (one of my favorite Southern cities), I head for Ollie's (Home o f the World's Best Barbecue), pick up a king-size, kick off my shoes, watch the Games by tube...
...From what I've heard, Atlanta's chief rival for hosting this year's Olympics was Athens (the one in Greece, not Georgia...
...Wilma Rudolph in Rome...
...By 1950, the Russell-Vinson lock had already begun to take hold...
...The man's got good sense...
...After touring the city, 62 August 1996 • The American Spectator he was quoted as saying, "I can't understand how anyone could justify flying here for vacation...
...And still does, from everything I hear...
...The Olympic Games...
...Hmmm...Tempting...
...May you die, be ticketed to Hell, and change planes in Atlanta...
...New South, right...
...We land, I've got hours to kill...
...But these are the summit years of the age of hyperbole (how else do you explain Dennis Rodman...
...But Atlanta had an edge the others lacked: home boys Richard Russell and Carl Vinson, who together had a lock on the country's biggest growth industry during the war and postwar years...
...Not long ago that might have been enough to carry home the prize...
...A bottle of Classic Coke, the city's most memorable contribution to Western culture, goes for three dollars, ice and tax not included...
...Together they guaranteed Georgia a Most Favored State status in Defense Department awards of Army camps, Air Force bases, equipment contracts, and military transportation -including air routes...
...Take a cab into town, head for the Varsity, check around for tickets...
...Vinson chaired the House Armed Services Committee...
...Puts hair on your chest, brings back the glory days...
...Athens hosted the first modern Games in 1896...
...Keep in mind, those were the years when New York was still the city of the Great White Way, Broadway opening nights, DiMaggio, Lindy's, and Winchell...
...Would it hurt to make a few calls, see if I can pick up a ticket, maybe even a press freebie, for one or two events...
...It all went first-class, without a hitch-unless you want to be picky about that business of flying the Canadian flag upside down the first night...
...No sweat...
...THE NATION'S PULSE Circling Atlanta An Olympic city only General Sherman could love...
...Bob Mathias in London and Helsinki...
...VICTOR GOLD is The American Spectator's national correspondent...
...All this comes by word-of-mouth from Yankee tourists who went to the Olympics looking for a taste of Southern hospitality...
...was only one of several towns-Birmingham, Chattanooga, and Knoxville were others-auditioning for the role of air hub of the southeast...
...About twenty years later I returned to Atlanta, this time in another uniform (lawyer's gray) and by plane (9o minutes in the air, 45 minutes circling, zo minutes docking...
...Money, moolah, gelt...
...Old Southern malediction Somewhere Over Hartsfield International I had no plans to go to the Olympics this summer but, like it or not, here I am trying to make connections in America's most dysfunctional airport, a few kilometers down the marathon road...
...But, of course, he wasn't in Lausanne when Atlanta's good of boys made their sales pitch to the IOC selection committee...
...But sooner or later, unless the FAA has amended the laws of physics while we've been circling, the plane has to land...
...Russell chaired the Senate Armed Forces Committee...
...I-we-dislike the city...
...Didn't the Toronto Blue Jays come to town a few years back for a World Series...
...Midnight Saturday we headed back to camp, Kenton-andCole doing "Orange-Colored Sky" on the car radio...
...Played Ted Turner's beloved Braves, with Ted and Jane and Jimmy and Rosalynn in the stands...
...Finally, has Atlanta had any experience hosting international events...
...My brief against Atlanta predates even its gift of CNN and Peter Arnett to global diplomacy...
...Think of the history, of all we've read and seen on faded films over the years: Jesse Owens in Berlin...
...it's ninety percent of the civic inventory...
...For example: Does Atlanta have enough hotel space to host a summer Olympics...
...Lots of hype...
...Leb's was closed, but the Varsitythough it lacked the faux panache of other local restaurants-remained the best eatery in town...
...In a short while we'll be on the ground...
...Not even for the Olympics...
...Promises...
...Not Olympic runners, but the Klan doing its weekly thing...
...The city even then had the pitchman's gift for high-sounding slogans, and the going pitch at the time was-don't snicker"The New York of the South...
...There's been a lot of disinformation put out about our weather, so let's lay it to rest: Other than 98-degree temperatures, heat-lightning, afternoon thunderstorms and flash flooding, June through August, no problem at all...
...And every third male in town was either Army, Air Force, or working in a defense-related industry...
...Big mistake...
...True enough, but the real push that led to Atlanta's emergence came out of Washington, where a political stroke helped make the city a major air center...
...A great deal had changed, but much was still the same...
...But why temporize...
...Maybe the great god of sports fans is trying to tell me something: that this time around, I've caught a lucky break...
...This was the Atlanta I first came to know while training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, during the Korean War...
...L ike most Southerners outside Atlanta, I have few positive thoughts about the place...
...The competition, they say, was fierce...
...True, the pilot's said that three times, and there's no reason to believe him a fourth...
...Spend time in the City of Hype...
...If nothing else, synchronized swimming...
...Despise the Turnerite smugness contained in the notion that the Atlanta Braves, by virtue of extended cable and Jane Fonda sitting in the owner's box, have somehow become "America's Team...
...Of course we have...
...Hey, this is where Jimmy Carter learned his trade, remember...
...As Marge Schott might put it, Sherman had the right idea, he just went nuts at the end...
...and no city beats the capital of Georgia at that game...
Vol. 29 • August 1996 • No. 8
