Georgia on my mind

Georgia is a lovely place to live. Apart from being hotter than Hell for 4-5 months out of the year, that is. But even the heat has its advantages: it's a wonderful place to go swimming, because between May and September you never need to worry whether the water is too cold.

Georgia is sort of the prototypical state of the Deep South in popular culture. You hear more about it in songs, I think, than Alabama or Mississippi (probably not than Tennessee, though): of course "The Devil went Down to Georgia," but also "Good Directions," "Meet in the Middle," "Toes," and many others. ("Georgia on My Mind" is also one of the most beautiful state songs.) It has even given rise to an expression, "Hell's broke loose in Georgia," that is widely used. (However, I have no idea where this expression comes from, and I would love to hear about if any knows.)

Georgia's iconic status was cemented, in a very bad way, by the movie "Deliverance." I avoided this movie for years because I thought I would hate it, but I finally gave in -- since I live in Georgia, I figured I ought to see it. I was right, I hated it. Actually, it was a very good movie apart from the one awful scene that everyone knows about, but that scene was really, really bad. One of my colleagues from South Carolina met James Dickey while he was teaching at the University of South Carolina, and asked him why he would write such a thing that portrayed Southerners in such a negative light. "Well," he said, "the money was good. Besides, it takes place on the other side of the river" (i.e., in Georgia rather than South Carolina). I was interested to learn recently that James Dickey was a pathological liar. Not that it makes any difference to the story (it is fiction, after all), but it was interesting to learn.

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